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THE EMPIRE 
OF LIFE INSURANCE 



THE EMPIRE 
OF LIFE INSURANCE 


BY 

EMMET C. }IAY 

President Peoria Life Insurance Company 


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PRESS OF 

EDWARD HINE & COMPANY 
PEORIA, ILLINOIS 


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COPYRIGHTED, 1&28 
BY 

EMMET C. MAY 


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JUL 14 1923 

©C1A711178 


TO 

THE LIFE INSURANCE AGENT, 
EVERYWHERE, THIS BOOK IS 
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED IN 
GRATEFUL RECOGNITION AND 
APPRECIATION OF HIS SPLEN¬ 
DID WORK, GOOD COUNSEL 
AND ADVICE WHICH IS BUILD¬ 
ING SO WELL TODAY THAT 
POSTERITY WILL HAVE A 
BETTER TOMORROW. 
















INTRODUCTION 

The General Agent or Manager of a Life 
Insurance Agency is truly an emperor. His 
territory is an empire which is peopled by 
human beings in every calling, profession and 
walk of life. In his important and dignified 
profession he has watched over their successes 
and their failures; their joys and their sor¬ 
rows; their riches and their poverty, and he 
has brought progress out of it all. He has 
seen families grow and he has seen family ties 
broken. It has been his privilege to give ad¬ 
vice for the guidance and protection of busi¬ 
ness for the families and the dependents of 
his subjects. It is his pleasure to see this 
advice ripen into beneficial results to his peo¬ 
ple. He has built well. The history of his 
territory cannot be written without including 
his own biography. His work has made for 
happier homes, greater education and more 
substantial business, and for less dependency 
and unhappiness. All this means aid and 
strength to his state and his nation. While he 
has been doing this great service for humanity 
he has been building well for himself and has 
had great pleasure and satisfaction while do¬ 
ing so. 


The business of Life Insurance today is 
recognized as being as great and important a 
profession as any. An agency is surely an 
empire and he who rules over it is surely an 
emperor. To set forth the vision of an agency 
in just such a light, and in that importance, is 
the object of the following pages. If this vol¬ 
ume causes some agent to view with more im¬ 
portance the obligations of his profession, 
causes him to give better service, and to vision 
his agency as a real empire—as great as the 
empire of his boyhood dreams—thereby giv¬ 
ing him greater ambition and purpose, then 
my accomplishment will be great indeed and 
I shall be satisfied. 

—Emmet C. May. 


May 15th, 1923 


CONTENTS 


Page 

Introduction ----- 9 

The Obligation of the Life Agent - 13 

Creditable Success - 63 

The Best Method of Acquainting the Pub¬ 
lic with the Benefits of Life Insurance 119 

Today’s Methods in Business - 149 

Loyalty to the Agency Means Full Co¬ 
operation - - - - - 183 

Making a Life Insurance Agent a Real 
Counselor ----- 209 

The Life Insurance Man’s Responsibility 
to Old Age ... . 225 

Making Good With What You Have 243 




THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE 

AGENT 


The Obligation of the Life Agent 

This subject of mine “The Obligation of 
the Life Agent” is as broad as the life insur¬ 
ance business. Every obligation presupposes 
a duty. If there is a duty there is an obliga¬ 
tion. If there are rights there are duties. 
This land of ours is the one great government 
in the world which is based upon the individ¬ 
ual rights of its citizens. The basic principle 
of our government, and our country itself, is 
that every person is created free and equal 
and is endowed with certain inalienable rights 
and liberties. It is this solid foundation 
stone that has made our country stand longer 
as a republic than any other country has so 
stood. And we who are here today see no in¬ 
dication that there is need for change of the 
basic principles of our government. Every in¬ 
dividual in whatever calling or business has 
his rights and those rights are limited only by 
his duty to his fellowmen. He must necessar¬ 
ily observe the rights of others. He must ac¬ 
cord to other people the same rights and priv¬ 
ileges that he claims for himself. In doing so 
he restricts his rights only by his duties. 
Therefore, every individual in whatever call¬ 
ing has an obligation that comes along with 

15 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

his business and the faithful discharge of that 
obligation is the high point of service in his 
particular business that he renders to man¬ 
kind. 

So it is very fitting that we think for a little 
while of the obligation of the life agent, and 
to determine what are the life agent’s obliga¬ 
tions means that we must first find out what 
his rights and duties are, because they go hand 
in hand. We must not be content with the 
idea that his obligation is to go out over the 
country among his friends and fellow citizens 
and solicit life insurance and deliver policies 
and pay death claims. These are just a few 
of his duties. The boy shining shoes for his 
living has certain obligations: the obligation 
of courtesy, of good workmanship, of prompt¬ 
ness. The persons operating Marshall Field’s 
store have obligations to the public and to 
their customers, and these obligations are to 
deliver the best service possible and all that 
goes with it in their business. They deal with 
thousands and thousands of people and to each 
of them they owe the obligation that goes with 
the transaction of a mercantile business. The 
man who operates the largest bank in the 
country has an obligation that is commensur¬ 
ate with his business. He has the trust that is 
imposed upon him in keeping other people’s 
money. He has the obligation of good system, 

16 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

for the prompt and efficient transaction of the 
business. His obligation includes courtesy 
and promptness and all those things that go to 
constitute good will and make up a banking 
institution. 

And what must we say of the life insurance 
agent? First we should get as a background 
the institution which the life agent represents, 
the institution of which he is a part. Let us 
go further than that and say the institution 
which he himself IS in his locality. It seems 
necessary that we should know the magnitude 
and the extent of this institution before we 
try to determine the life agent’s obligations. 
We often say that the life insurance busi¬ 
ness is the greatest business in the world. 
From a humanitarian standpoint we know 
this to be true. Is it true from other 
standpoints? Can we prove it? Let’s see 
what business we can best compare it with. Is 
it as big as the banking business, or the rail¬ 
road business? Or does it deserve the place of 
the local department store, the implement bus¬ 
iness, or just where should we place this insti¬ 
tution of ours in order to get the proper per¬ 
spective of it for the discussion of this sub¬ 
ject? Life insurance in this country began in 
1759, just about one century before the Civil 
War and the period in which Lincoln lived. 
So it is not a young institution. It is rather an 

17 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

old institution. And then we should see 
whether it has kept pace with the other busi¬ 
nesses and other institutions which go to make 
up our business world. 

We need not go back so very far. Let's 
confine our thoughts about life insurance 
to the last 20 years. When we do that we 
are going to find some very striking fig¬ 
ures, some things that will astound us, even 
us who are working daily in this business 
of ours. If we go back to 1902, twenty years 
ago, we find that there were ten billions of life 
insurance in force in the United States. Now 
when we begin to think in the billions, figures 
do not mean much and all we can do is to 
make a few comparisons. It had taken life 
insurance one hundred forty-three years to 
reach the ten billion mark. That seems like a 
very slow and plodding progress for this bus¬ 
iness of ours. 

Let's look at the next ten years. We 
come to 1912 and we find there is in force 
in the United States nineteen billions of life 
insurance, almost double in ten years. In 
other words the companies had accomplished 
almost as much in ten years as they had in 
one hundred forty-three years before that. 

Let's take the next period from 1912 up to 
1916. Just come up to the war period. In 
1916 we find in force twenty-four billions. 

18 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 


IMPORTANCE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

Progress Last 20 Years 

1922 Produced.$10,000,000,000. 

In force 

1902 . 10,000,000,000. 

1912 . 19,000,000,000. Doubled in 10 years 

1916 . 24,000,000,000. 

1922 . 50,000,000,000. J 2% times in 10 years 

l 5 times in 20 years 

Number of Policies, 80,000,000—Assets, $12,000,000,000. 

More than double.Public Debt.$22,000,000,000. 

Almost double.National Banks Nat. $20,000,000,000. 

Sav. 7,000,000,000. 


$27,000,000,000. 

Two and one-half times... Railroads .$21,000,000,000. 

Six times..All U. S. Money.$ 8,000,000,000. 

(Less than 1922 business alone) 

Five times..Imports .$ 6,000,000,000. 

Exports.$ 4,000,000,000. 


(Equal to 1922 business alone) $10,000,000,000. 

Almost equal.Farm Values.$54,000,000,000. 

More than 4 times.Crops. 12,000,000,000. 

(Only slightly greater than 1922 business) 

Ten times.Mortgages . 5,000,000,000. 

(1922 Business twice as large) 

More than capital of all manufactories.$45,000,000,000. 

Almost equal to manufactured products. 62,000,000,000. 

Twelve times both.Coal . 3,000,000,000. 

Oil . 1,000,000,000. 


(1922 Business times) 


$ 4,000,000,000. 


Comparison With Other Businesses Last 10 Years 


1912 

National Banks.. .$10,000,000,000. 
Savings Banks.... 4,000,000,000. 

Railroads . 19,000,000,000. 

Farms . 28,000,000,000. 

Farm Products... 9,000,000,000. 
Manufactories: 

Capital . 22,000,000,000. 

Products .... 24,000,000,000. 
Life Insurance.. 19,000,000,000. 


1922 Increase 

$20,000,000,000. Double 

7,000,000,000. Double 

21 , 000 , 000 , 000 . 10 % 

54,000,000,000. Double 

12,000,000,000. 33% 

45,000,000,000. Double 

62,000,000,000. 2 1 /6 times 

50,000,000,000. 2% times 


Life Insurance Has Paid in 10 Years 


Death Claims.$3,000,000,000. 

Dividends . 1,500,000,000. 

Surrender Values. 1,500,000,000. 


Total 


$ 6 , 000 , 000 , 000 . 







































THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


This shows a handsome increase. And so we 
have seen the business increase year by year 
since that time until we close 1922 with fifty 
billions of life insurance in force in the United 
States. This is an increase of five times the 
amount of twenty years ago, and is two and 
one-half times the amount ten years ago. This 
twenty-year period shows five times the re¬ 
sults that the business had shown in one hun¬ 
dred forty-three years prior to that time. This 
fifty billions of life insurance is carried in 
eighty millions of policies. The assets of 
the companies have grown in proportion until 
today they total the enormous figures of twelve 
billions of dollars. 

Now these figures are so large and stu¬ 
pendous that we cannot comprehend them. 
And this progress of our business makes 
a very romantic history, a history that has 
been written by the life agent whose obli¬ 
gations we want to determine today. The life 
agent has built and is building the companies. 
To him belongs the credit. The progress of the 
life insurance business dates from the time 
the life agent began to educate himself and 
force his company to recognize the fact that 
he deserved to be placed in good company and 
in the company of good agents in the trans¬ 
action of his business; that he deserved a 
reputation and that he deserved to make his 


20 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

profession the same as any other profession; 
that he deserved education and training for 
the highest class salesmanship in the world. 

Let’s see if we can compare this business of 
ours, as a business, with some of the other 
businesses of our country, just to see where we 
will arrive in locating our institution as com¬ 
pared with the others. Let’s look at some of 
our government figures first. The first thing 
we usually do is to think about how much 
money there is in the United States and we 
find that the government has outstanding 
eight billions in money. The assets of the life 
insurance companies of this country are one 
and a half times as great as all of the money 
in the country. We did during 1922 ten bil¬ 
lions of life insurance business. This year’s 
work alone created more wealth in insurance 
estates than all of the money of the United 
States, and the insurance in force at the close 
of 1922 was six times as large as all of the 
money in this country. The life insurance of 
this country could pay off the public debt, in¬ 
cluding the war debt, two and one-half times, 
because that only amounts to twenty-two bil¬ 
lions. We think about our banking business, 
and we can look up the national banks, and 
add to their resources the savings banks of 
the country, and we find the total receipts of 
both of them only twenty-seven billions. Life 


21 


f 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

insurance is almost twice that amount. We 
think about the railroads as being gigantic in¬ 
stitutions and all added together they amount 
to enormous sums. They do, but their total 
value is only twenty-one billions, and life in¬ 
surance is two and one-half times as great as 
the railroads. The imports and exports both 
added together in this country amount to ten 
billions of dollars. The business done by the 
life insurance companies in 1922 alone equals 
that, and the total of our business is five' times 
as great. Let's look at the manufacturing 
business in this country and include in it the 
automobile business, and every other charac¬ 
ter of manufacturing and see just what they 
have invested in their institutions. When we 
get to the final figure we find it is forty-five 
billions. Life insurance is five billions great¬ 
er. These same manufacturing institutions, 
all of them put together put out sixty-two bil¬ 
lions worth of products. That is only twelve 
billions greater than the life insurance busi¬ 
ness, and that means all of the manufacturing 
institutions put together. If we put the oil 
and the coal business together they amount to 
only four billions, only one-third as much as 
the assets of the life insurance business and 
about one-third of the amount of business done 
in 1922 alone. 


22 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

Let's go to something bigger. Do you 
have any idea of the value of the farms in 
the United States? Statistics show us that 
all the farms are worth fifty-four billions. If 
the life insurance companies could find some 
other institution that would loan them four 
billions they could buy all the farms in the 
United States and have a mortgage on them of 
only four billions. That is all that it would 
lack for them to buy all the farms and own 
them clear. The crops produced on the farms 
in the United States amount to twelve billions. 
Life insurance is four times as great as that 
and the business of 1922 is almost equal to it. 
There are five billions of mortgages on farms 
in the United States. Life insurance compan¬ 
ies out of their assets could pay that off two 
and one-half times. 

Now then we ought to have a pretty good 
perspective of how our business compares with 
the other big businesses of the United States. 
When we have this clearly fixed in our minds 
we then realize that there is no other institu¬ 
tion in the United States, and that means in 
the world, that is as big as the life insurance 
business. It stands in first place in its magni¬ 
tude and it could no more be discontinued or 
lifted out of the United States without bank¬ 
rupting the entire country than we could stop 
all the machinery of our government without 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


a panic. Somebody has said that the life in¬ 
surance business is getting to such great mag¬ 
nitude that if it goes on in the same propor¬ 
tion the entire financial situation in the coun¬ 
try will be controlled by it. There is no cause 
for alarm from that source because life insur¬ 
ance has done as much and is doing as much 
today for the development and prosperity of 
the country and its business as any other one 
institution in the country. If we telephone 
from New York to San Francisco it is because 
the telephone companies have been made pos¬ 
sible by the investment of life insurance com¬ 
panies in their bonds. The railroad compan¬ 
ies have made this country great in business 
because the life insurance companies have pro¬ 
moted and own the railroad bonds. If the 
banking business has grown to be so great in 
this country today that it is a marvel to all 
other countries, one chief reason is that the 
life insurance companies have given the bank¬ 
ing business the fullest co-operation. If the 
farmer has developed so that during the war 
he could feed the world, it is because the life 
insurance companies have carried the mort¬ 
gages on his farm which have made it possible 
for him to develop that farm, to raise the 
products on his farm so that he could progress 
along with all the other businesses of this 
country. And if the life insurance business 


24 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

through the investment of its funds does pro¬ 
mote and stimulate these institutions which 
are making our country great it does so not as 
owners of these institutions but as investors 
in them. 

So I think we can conclude that we, each 
of us, are partners in the greatest business in 
the world. Greater in its magnitude than any 
we can think of. So great that we could pur¬ 
chase and own outright many of the empires 
of Europe. So great that when we make com¬ 
parison with any other business we find that 
the comparison only makes our institution 
stand out the greater. 

HOW HAS LIFE INSURANCE STOOD THE TEST? 

During the past few years we have gone 
through a very strenuous period in this coun¬ 
try and there has been a great deal of talk 
over the country about this institution and 
that institution having suffered. Every one 
of them tries to give the impression that it has 
had just a little harder time than the other. 
The bankers tell us that they have been hit 
hard. They tell us that they have not prog¬ 
ressed, that they have not made any money. 
The railroads tell us that their rolling stock 
has gone down and that the many things they 
have had to put up with have made it so hard 
for them to transact their business that they 


25 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

are on the verge of bankruptcy; and so far as 
I am able to see the railroads are the only ones 
who have suffered to any appreciable extent. 

The manufacturers tell us that they have 
suffered and that prosperity has not yet come 
to them. The farmers tell that they are so poor 
that they can hardly live. Now let’s admit 
that we have suffered, and indeed we could 
not expect otherwise. It has been history for 
all time that during a period of war in a coun¬ 
try prices go up because of the extra demand. 
During our World War prices went up every 
place on account of the extra demand. His¬ 
tory tells us that if they go up they must sure¬ 
ly come down, and will seek a level. But there 
is something that comes out of a result of go¬ 
ing up and coming down and that something 
is either good or bad. It does not take very 
much of an analysis of the different businesses 
to see what the results of these past few years 
has been. For instance, ten years ago the re¬ 
sources of the national banks of this country 
were fourteen billions and today they are 
twenty-seven billions. To double our business 
in ten years is a pretty good record, isn’t it? 
I don’t like to take issue with these banker 
friends of ours, but the records, which you 
will find published, show that during 1917 the 
banks earned 21%; during 1918 they earned 
20%; during 1919 they earned 22%, and in 

26 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

1920 they earned 21%; and in 1921 they 
earned 21%. The figures for 1922 are not yet 
published. I do not believe the banking busi¬ 
ness has suffered so much when you consider 
the fact that they doubled their business in ten 
years. 

The increase in the railroad business 
for ten years has been only 10%, and when 
that is distributed over the up and down per¬ 
iod it does not leave the railroads in a very 
good condition. What about the manufactur¬ 
er? Ten years ago the capital invested in 
factories in this country was twenty-two bil¬ 
lions. Today it is forty-five billions, just 
double. Ten years ago these factories pro¬ 
duced twenty-four billions of dollars of prod¬ 
ucts, today they produce sixty-two billions. 
This is two and one-half times the business 
ten years ago. They cannot get away from 
these figures and these facts. Now what about 
the farmer, the man whom we have had to 
deal with very largely because of the charac¬ 
ter of our business? In 1912 the farms of this 
country were appraised by the government at 
twenty-eight billions and today they are ap¬ 
praised at fifty-four billions. This figure lacks 
just a little bit of being doubled during that 
time. The farmer had his high prices and he 
is now having his low prices, but still has 
double his values of ten years ago. 


27 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


Now let’s see how life insurance has stood 
the test. Ten years ago the life insurance in 
force was nineteen billions, today it is fifty 
billions, or two and one-half times as great. 
What has life insurance contributed during 
this ten years to the estates of this nation? 
We have paid in death claims three billions of 
dollars. We have paid another three billions 
in dividends and surrender values to living 
policyholders, making six billions that life in¬ 
surance has turned back into the actual wealth 
of this country during the past ten years, al¬ 
most as much as all of the money of the United 
States government. During that period life 
insurance has never failed to meet any and 
every obligation and any and every promise 
that it had made. And during the same 
period it has promoted and extended its bus¬ 
iness, bearing all the expenses and costs of the 
same, and because it is built upon a solid scien¬ 
tific basis it has been able to stand the test, 
and such a test as no other business had, be¬ 
cause it had the drain of the extra mortality 
of the war and the influenza which combined 
made the most serious drain that was ever im¬ 
posed upon any financial institution. And yet 
it stood the test. So much for the institution 
itself. 

Now how has the agency force of the insti¬ 
tution of life insurance stood the test? We 


28 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

have seen some of the weaker ones go by the 
wayside. That was to be expected. During 
the prosperous period when it was very easy 
to get applications for life insurance, just as 
it was easy to sell anything else, many drifted 
into the life insurance business because it was 
easy and they came down the road to the grade 
and there they quit. These men had no vision 
of our institution. And the saying is just as 
true in business as it is in nations; “where 
there is no vision the people perish.” The life 
insurance agent who came into the business 
expecting to take the hardships in the business 
as well as the easy productive times has prog¬ 
ressed in the business and has made money. 
I am not trying to prove to you that the past 
few years have been easy. I do not know any 
institution or any kind of business that has 
been easy during that time. I am sure if you 
can think of any it would be a business we 
would not be engaged in. But I do want to 
say that the records of the past three years, 
which have been the hard ones, have proven 
conclusively that the people of the United 
States buy life insurance no matter how hard 
up they are. 

When we hit our big year in 1920 and 
did ten billions of business we thought that 
was a record that never would be equaled 
again. Yet 1921 followed suit with almost 

29 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

as much and 1922 very nearly touched 
the same level, with the prospect right now 
that 1923 will go past the biggest of all rec¬ 
ords. This proves things we cannot get away 
from. In looking at these details we look at 
the business as a whole, and that business is 
made up of agencies and of individual produc¬ 
tion of the agents of this country. They are 
the ones who have made that record, and these 
records compare very favorably in proportion 
with records of other years. Some agencies 
fell down. Some went away ahead, and it is 
always so. Some caught a vision and made 
capital of everything at hand and some other 
men went into the discard because they did not 
size up the situation correctly. The same 
thing will be true this year and every other 
year. The very same thing was true in 1920. 
Business was big then and we did not notice 
the fellow who fell down so much. We just 
sort of forgot him. It wasn't a matter of sell¬ 
ing then, it was just a sort of an adding ma¬ 
chine operation. We just added up each 
day's business to see how big it was. But 
when it came to selling on merits and the 
agent using his ability we had a different test. 
Those with backbone and ability and ambition 
and vision stood the test and they are standing 
the test today. Emergencies and tense situa¬ 
tions have always made heroes and martyrs 

30 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

and beacon lights of history. He who rules 
over all has never failed to send forth the sav¬ 
iours in every crisis. 

It is my candid opinion that so far as 
results are concerned, considering one agent 
with another, that the past three years 
have been no different in results than any 
other three years. The business as a whole 
has kept up. It has been a test of the in¬ 
dividuals, but we are being tested all the 
time. This life insurance business of ours 
from an agency standpoint is a matter of in¬ 
dividuality and of individual training and of 
individual stamina, and of individual back¬ 
bone and grit, and it takes these things to cope 
with any time no matter whether it is easy or 
hard. The agency force of life insurance has 
stood the test. I believe the real test for the 
agency force of our business is in the future 
and not in the past. The test is when we come 
to more prosperous days, when we seek the 
shade, when we lie back on our laurels. The 
salvation is in new recruits who enter the bus¬ 
iness and bring into the business somebody 
who takes the place of men who lie down or 
who begin to take second place in production. 

Let's not look at the wealth of our business, 
let's not look at what we can lay up in sums of 
money from our business, but let's look to our 
record, to keeping up that record so we shall be 


31 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


proud of it at all times as a live going agency. 
What we accomplish and what we do in this 
W’orld that people remember is the material 
out of which monuments are built if they are 
to be worth while. Somebody has said that 
there are just three things that are worth 
while in this life. The first one is a home and 
a few friends to give us happiness; the next is 
a job to maintain that home; and the third is a 
government to protect that home and its in¬ 
dividuals. And when we come to the last 
analysis that is about true. And when we 
think of our subject and analyze the situation 
of our business, and of the progress it has 
made, and the records that we as individuals 
have made, and are making, we realize the 
statement of these three things being the sum 
total of life is about correct. 

THE REAL OBLIGATION IN OUR BUSINESS 

Now, then, we have a perspective of our 
business, showing how big it is and how im¬ 
portant it is. We have examined carefully 
to see whether our institution and our in¬ 
dividuals have stood the test as well as any 
other institution and our conclusion is that it 
has. Then what obligation does our business 
carry with it? If we go into the life insurance 
business with a purely selfish viewpoint then 
we look at the making of money. From our 


32 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

own standpoint and the standpoint of our fam¬ 
ilies the obligation we owe to that source is 
to make the most money we can out of the 
business. That is a narrow, selfish view. But 
there is another side which says you have an 
obligation to other people than yourself and 
your families and that obligation is bigger 
than any other. The very nature of our busi¬ 
ness from day to day places us in a capacity 
that is not taken or assumed by any other 
person in the world. We go out in the capacity 
of advisor, in the capacity of one who thinks 
about his fellow man. 

It has been many thousands of years 
since Joseph went down into Egypt and 
gathered and stored wheat and corn for pro¬ 
tection against the lean years that were sure 
to come. Dr. Talmadge tells us that was 
the first insurance in the world. If Joseph 
was the first life agent he did his work 
well. In fact he thought of other people 
and he went to each individual in that country 
and told them they ought to do something to 
protect themselves against the lean years that 
would come. “You ought to be prepared,” he 
told them, “so that you and your families will 
not suffer, and if you don’t do it I will do it 
for you.” Let us say he was the first life in¬ 
surance agent, and he was a good one. Today 
we are following the same principle. We go 


33 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

forth on Monday morning to our week's work 
and we have to tell the first person we come 
to why he should carry life insurance. We 
have to make him think about his obligations 
and his duty to his family. We have to sit 
down and cast up the figures which make him 
see the protection he needs against the con¬ 
tingencies of life. It ever will be so for the 
life insurance agent. If there were no haz¬ 
ards and chances and contingencies in life 
then there would be no place for life insur¬ 
ance. But He who watches the sparrow fall 
also places the test for souls—the test by fire, 
the test of strength, of morality and all the 
hazards to which man is heir. 

Let us not look at that in a complaining 
way. I say to you that we are fortunate, 
more fortunate indeed than you know, that 
in your profession you are the only person in 
the world who thinks of the other fellow's 
welfare. This is a privilege and a distinction. 
Every individual is slow to do his duty that 
is imposed upon him by the very principles of 
nature. We are all negligent in this regard. 
We have to be told why; we have to be urged 
in the very strongest way before we will act. 
The minister in his calling urges his congre¬ 
gation always to fit themselves in a spiritual 
way so that they will be ready for the emerg¬ 
encies. He presents the facts and the obliga- 

34 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 


tions people owe to themselves, but he thinks 
not of a person’s financial welfare, nor of 
those dependent upon him. It is not a part of 
his calling. The banker is glad to receive new 
accounts be they large or small. He carefully 
guards their investments and invests the 
money and keeps it for the depositor and re¬ 
turns it to him with interest when he asks 
for it. But he does not look to the man’s wel¬ 
fare. It is not a part of his business. He has 
no way of creating an estate for him if he 
thought ever so much about it. If you ride on 
a railroad all the duty it owes is to carry you 
safely from one place to another and use 
ordinary care in doing so. There its duty 
ends. If we enter any mercantile or manufac¬ 
turing institution we can buy with great sat¬ 
isfaction whatever they have to sell. We 
receive the best kind of service but there is 
no thought of the future welfare of the buyer. 

The lawyer transacts the business brought to 
him by his client and finishes it all up and re¬ 
ceives his fee. He thinks no further of the 
welfare of that client. If he is called upon to 
make a will, which comes as close to thinking 
about the future as anything we know of in 
the legal profession, he will figure out the 
legal phases of the various bequests his client 
desires to make, but there is no thought 
about his future welfare. Then tell me if you 


35 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

can if there is any person in any business who 
gives any thought whatever to the future wel¬ 
fare of the individual or those dependent upon 
him save the life insurance agent. 

The life insurance agent does think from 
morning until night and from the entry into 
his business to the very close of it, solely 
about the welfare of his applicants. This is 
a new thought in the life insurance business 
because until a few years ago the life agent 
did not think much of good will in his business. 
He built for today and not for the future. 
But today there is no successful agent in the 
business who does his work for today alone. 
He looks twenty or fifty years hence and tries 
to visualize the results of his work at that 
time. He must do his business so that no 
fault can be found. There must be no blem¬ 
ish on his escutcheon. He must have friends 
and he must have good will. The courts have 
valued good will alone at ten year's profits of 
a business. Just think of it, good will alone 
today is worth ten year's profit in a business. 
A few years ago it was not considered as 
having any value in business. 

The most important part of an agent's can¬ 
vass for life insurance is the proper presenta¬ 
tion of the protection that life insurance af¬ 
fords. That protection affects not only the 
beneficiary but the members of his family. 

36 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

It is a serious business and more far reaching 
than the advice given by the lawyer or the 
minister or the banker. It is a more import¬ 
ant transaction in the prospect’s life than any 
other kind of a transaction, and therein lies 
the obligation of a life agent. His obligation 
then is first to have a proper conception of his 
business; to know the magnitude of his busi¬ 
ness and what it does; to know the goods he 
has to sell so that the advice given in these 
canvasses of his is just as correct and accurate 
as that given by the lawyer or doctor. He 
must realize that his advice is just as import¬ 
ant and that a mistake or poor advice from 
him is equally as serious as the mistakes of a 
doctor or a lawyer. He must realize what 
depends upon that advice. He must realize 
the obligation that rests upon his shoulders. 
The policy about which he is talking to the 
prospect does not merely do just what it says 
in the face of the policy but it means food and 
clothing and shelter, and even education for 
the children and comfort for the widow. It 
means that the family can go on in the same 
station of life to which they have been brought. 
It means the highest class of estates. You 
tell your prospect that his policy, this insur¬ 
ance estate that you are trying to create for 
him, will accomplish certain things, and in- 

37 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

deed it will, but you must realize then that 
your obligation is just beginning. 

You have entered into a contract with 
that prospect. There are at least four parties 
to every one of these contracts. The policy 
is written including three, the company, the 
insured and the beneficiary. You are the 
fourth party to that contract. Indeed you 
are the FIRST party. The duty and the 
obligation that you owe is first to the man 
to whom you are making this canvass, to 
help him carry out and execute this con¬ 
tract which you have induced him to be¬ 
lieve is important for him to make. You must 
not stop after the sale of your policy. The 
next step is to deliver the policy, but you 
are not done then by any means. You 
should ever keep a watchful eye upon this 
man with whom you have entered into a con¬ 
tract. You should see him at least once a 
year. You should know that he is keeping 
up his payments and that he is keeping his 
policy in force. You should know his needs 
and help him to carry out all the terms of it. 
When you make the canvass on this applicant 
you figure out with him how much insurance 
completely covers his needs. If you have 
found that this man is 30 years of age and 
has a wife and three children and that he is 
earning $2500 a year it does not take you 

38 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

very long to figure with him that by the time 
his wife pays up the indebtedness after his 
death, pays the rent on the house, pays for 
their living expenses, that she can just barely 
educate the children and get through for 
about ten years if he is carrying $18,000 of 
life insurance. That amount is the present 
value of his worth to his family on the basis 
of $2500 a year at 5%. 

You have shown him these things. You 
have shown him that he must guard his 
children against ignorance, vice and crime 
and all these things that take away the op¬ 
portunities that his neighbor’s children have. 
You have shown him that his widow will 
not want. You have pictured a pleasant old 
age for himself and his wife and prosper¬ 
ous homes for his children and you have 
led him into the heights and shown him the 
promised land in this insurance estate. You 
must help him enter into this promised 
land. You must realize that to execute every 
promise and every statement you have made 
to him is your obligation and that obligation 
extends farther than the man you are can¬ 
vassing. It extends to the beneficiary and 
the wife and the family and all the members 
of the family that are affected by any estate 
that man might own. It extends to the public 
because it is the creation of an estate that is 


39 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

a part of the community welfare. It extends 
to your profession because the upholding of a 
profession is one of the things we owe to our¬ 
selves. Then the sum total of a life insurance 
man’s obligation is to fully realize what he is 
doing in his profession and do it so well and 
so completely that no matter when or how his 
actions or statements are investigated he will 
not be found wanting. Have you seriously 
thought how important is the advice and 
council you give? If you have then you know 
that the proper and thorough understanding 
of your business is of more importance than 
that of any man in any profession. 

You remember back in your childhood days 
how important a man the old family physician 
was and how his advice was sought by every¬ 
body on all subjects, especially if it were a 
small country town. If the husband had 
died the widow would ask the family physician 
what should be done about the farm and the 
mortgage on it; what should be done about 
the children and their education; what should 
be done with this or that investment, and 
they usually followed his advice. Whenever 
any one in the family became ill this same 
family physician was called and it was with 
complete confidence that they placed the 
patient in his hands. He was the medical 
adviser. They knew from his education and 


40 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

training and experience that he was to be 
trusted and it was with implicit faith that 
they placed the life of the patient in his hands. 
If in prescribing for the patient the doctor 
had made an error and had given the wrong 
kind of medicine death would have ensued 
and the doctor could have been prosecuted. 
The family and the entire community would 
have been up in arms, insisting upon punish¬ 
ment for him. 

The obligation of the life insurance agent 
is of equal importance to the position of the 
family physician in this instance. Every time 
you make a canvass you are prescribing for 
your prospect. You tell him about the policy 
on which you are making a canvass and how 
it fits his needs and meets them and that it 
will do so and so for him. If you do not prop¬ 
erly prescribe this policy then you will divert 
the estate which you are creating for the in¬ 
sured from the very purpose for which it is 
intended. So your obligation is just as strong 
and rests upon your shoulders with as much 
weight as does the physician’s in saving the 
life of his patient. The estate that you are 
creating, be it large or small, may affect 
future generations for many years to come. 
It will at least have a great influence on the 
beneficiary and those dependent upon the 
beneficiary, if in effect it does not go on for 

41 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

many succeeding generations. So if your ad¬ 
vice fails then the whole cause fails. If you 
prescribe wrongly very serious results may 
come. Then it is of very great importance 
that the life insurance man realize the ser¬ 
iousness and importance of his obligation in 
his advice because he is a counselor whose 
advice is more far-reaching than of any other 
profession in the world. 

There is another thing that the life agent 
must realize, however small his agency may 
be or how large it may be, and that is that it 
is just a little company in itself. The parent 
company, just like nations, has a protecting 
guardianship over it and guides it to success, 
gives assistance and promotion. And that 
agency no matter how large or small has ex¬ 
actly the same duties and obligations to every¬ 
body that the company itself has. And then 
it resolves itself down to the individual who 
is operating that agency. All its duties and 
obligations rest upon his shoulders. And it is 
wonderful that it is so. We look to those who 
minister to the spiritual welfare of the peo¬ 
ple with the greatest respect because they are 
bettering and saving souls. The life insur¬ 
ance man is doing that and more. Not only 
does he create estates and make it possible for 
people to be in better position but he does 
more in the fight on ignorance and vice and 


42 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

crime than any other agency in the world. 
Necessarily in transacting our business we 
are fighting the greatest of all battles. In 
performing our obligation we are accomplish¬ 
ing more than any person of whom we can 
think. 

What then is the status of the profession of 
the life agent? What is his standing? What 
is his position among his fellowmen? Does it 
take any illustration to prove it? Does it 
take any argument to have him take his proper 
place in the business and professional world? 
Isn't it enough that he is the advisor of the 
people, of their welfare? Isn't it enough that 
he is the only person in the world who thinks 
about the welfare of men, women and chil¬ 
dren? I want to say to you if you can think 
about your business and the great obligation 
that rests upon your shoulders without getting 
a thrill out of it, without it occurring to you 
that there is no person on earth that has so 
important a duty in this world to perform as 
you have, then you have not yet had the prop¬ 
er conception of a life insurance agency. 

MY VISION OF A LIFE AGENCY 

Just let me give you what is my vision of 
a life insurance agency. I will tell it to you 
in a story. Once upon a time there was a boy 
who lived on a farm, just any boy because 


43 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

this is not a true story. He was 12 years of 
age on this particular day that we see the 
little fellow. It was in the early days of June. 
Everything was in that growing state on the 
farm that quickens and inspires imagination. 
This young boy played just like all other boys; 
he read just like all other boys, except possibly 
he read more of those things which make keen 
the imagination and the vision. Just as all 
boys he was given to day dreaming. It was 
two o’clock in the afternoon, and you who have 
been raised on a farm know how the warmth 
and the sunshine on a June day makes the 
spring fever creep into the very blood of a lad. 
Our boy tired from his play had sought the 
shade of the old corncrib, not the apple tree, 
for the grass was a little cooler near the crib. 
So we find him flat on his back gazing up into 
the sky. A few fleecy white clouds were 
floating up there and that set in motion his 
train of thought. He began by trying to 
imagine how far it was to the clouds, and 
what was back of them, and if it were possible 
to reach them, and drifted finally into his old 
familiar subject inspired by the books he read, 
that when he grew up he was going some 
place, some where, to a wild country and there 
he would conquer all the savages and all 
the pirates and all the bad people, and he 
would do the job so well that the people would 

44 




THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

choose him as their ruler, and he would set 
about to build an empire of his own. 

This land, this empire of his, must be made 
up of hills and valleys. It must have beautiful 
landscapes and all that it takes to make a 
beautiful country, and then he would train 
these native people of his into the different 
businesses. Some of them he would make 
bankers and have them build up big institu¬ 
tions and others he would make ministers and 
he would have doctors and lawyers and mer¬ 
chants, and he would have all the other busi¬ 
nesses and professions. He would be very 
patient in telling these people what they 
should do and how they should do it. He 
would set up churches and all other things 
that would improve the moral element of his 
subjects. He would teach them how to save 
and thereby make things better. He would 
make every home the unit of his empire and 
he would make all these homes happy homes. 
He would give all the individuals rights and 
privileges. He would build for himself a com¬ 
fortable home down among his people. He 
fancied on top of the hill where he could look 
over the empire he would have a palace meet¬ 
ing his fancies from which he would have the 
satisfaction of looking out over this people 
and being monarch of all he surveyed, and he 
would look down on a contented people well 


45 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

ruled and prosperous and happy. Yes, he 
would go one step farther, he would see that 
all these people of his were properly insured 
so that they and their loved ones in each of 
these homes would be so well protected that 
they would never be charges upon the rest of 
the people at any time, either for their old 
age or as orphans or widows. 

He would be so generous and so con¬ 
siderate of his subjects that he imagined he 
would come to old age as ruler of this 
empire of his fancy, and in that old age 
he would sit in his palace on Sunset Hill 
fully respected by every individual in the 
empire and from this mountain he would look 
down upon his life's work as an accomplish¬ 
ment to be proud of. Down in the valleys and 
upon the hills he would see the results of his 
work. He would see here and there great 
prosperous institutions, their walls bulging 
out with goods; great broad acres of ripening 
grain; great, good, clean cities full of con¬ 
tented, happy people. He would see here and 
there a monument and a memorial erected to 
his honor. But the greatest satisfaction 
would come to him by seeing all of it in per¬ 
spective, in seeing all the good he had done to 
those subjects of his life, who when his final 
summons should come would not inter his 
memory with his bones but that future gen- 


46 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

erations would look back to the man who had 
built an empire—had not only built an em¬ 
pire—but built and maintained a good empire. 

This was the young lad's dream and that 
is my vision of a life insurance agency. 

You say it has too much color; you say it is 
not true; you say it does not touch the subject. 
If you cannot see your life insurance agency 
as an empire greater than any ruled over by 
any ancient king you are not in the life insur¬ 
ance business. You remember the story we 
heard somebody tell a few years ago about 
three stone cutters. Each was asked what he 
was doing. One said he was working for 
$6.00 a day; the other said he was cutting 
stone; and the other who had vision said he 
was building a cathedral. The same thing was 
asked of three insurance agents and one said 
“I am making a commission on the business I 
sell," another said “I am placing a policy of 
life insurance on the life of this man, and in 
doing so I get good pay." The third man said 
“I am building nations; I am educating future 
generations; I am building empires." So I 
say to you if a life insurance agent is to 
amount to anything he must look at his agency 
as an empire, he must view it as something 
big and broad and with just as much color 
and vision as he would the fancies of his 
boyhood. You realize that there are great 

47 




THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

sorrows in this world and you are doing your 
share to alleviate them. You realize that edu¬ 
cation is the only foe to darkness and ignor¬ 
ance and crime. As you look into the face of 
the babe in the cradle you know there is a 
human soul that must cope with the world 
and that if it has its opportunity it will come 
out better than if it has had no chance at all. 
And you say “Why all this talk? We do not 
fight the children.” This is true. You fight 
FOR them. But let me tell you it is a fight 
that is going on all the time. 

Education means more than just learning 
a book. It means putting light where there 
was darkness. Look at Russia today. The 
children here in this land of ours have their 
chances. Let’s say that they have an average 
chance. They can have their day dreams, and 
they can have their toys and play and have 
their amusements. Let us turn to Russia, the 
Russia in which there is no education today. 
You know we always pity the child that is old 
before its time. We pity the person who never 
knew the delights of childhood. With a rule 
that has been put in force by law in Russia 
children must not be told the stories that chil¬ 
dren like, the fairy tales and all the things 
that amused and delighted us as children. 
No mother may sing a slumber song to her 
babe in Russia, no father may take his child 


48 






THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

upon his knee and tell it a tale as you have 
been told, or recite rhymes of childhood. But 
Russia is in darkness and without education, 
so much so that we read in the papers a few 
months ago that a father had called down 
upon the head of his child who had rebelled 
against some of these things, curses and 
damnation which in Russia is supposed to 
mean worse than death to anybody, and the 
mother of this child was compelled to stand by 
and hear all of this ceremony. Is it any won¬ 
der that she fell fainting to the floor? This is 
a practical demonstration of the absence of 
education and the proper care of children. 
Life insurance takes more care of education 
than any other institution in this country. 

No, our illustration does not have too much 
color in it. Everyone of you is building an 
empire of his own. You have these subjects 
that you have put in the business, these bank¬ 
ers, these merchants, these manufacturers, 
these professional men, all of them you have 
trained in business in your empire and the 
army that is keeping up the morale of all this 
country are your agents that you are sending 
through the community and throughout the 
territory, throughout the empire if you will, 
making it better all the time. Business is a 
world builder. It is always constructive. It 
is never destructive. A prosperous man helps 


49 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

his neighbor, a thrifty community is a part 
of the strength of our State, and an indus¬ 
trious business nation enlightens the whole 
world. So you in building your little empire 
are strengthening your own nation more than 
you probably have realized. 

Back at the beginning of things it was de¬ 
creed that a man should eat bread by the 
sweat of his brow. In other words we must 
toil for what we get, we must make our way. 
And so it has been from that time down to 
the present time, industry underlies all busi¬ 
ness. Industry and work produce wealth 
and makes business. In the business part of 
your empire men are chiefly concerned about 
their own business and their own private 
affairs. They are thinking of their argosies 
at sea. They hope they will all come sailing 
home laden with wealth. You must insure 
their business and ease their thoughts. You 
protect that and you give them satisfaction 
and contentment. You who are successful 
work hard for achievements and there is no 
royal road to success. You know that you 
have to work that way but you know that 
your work tells in this agency, this empire of 
yours. You know that in all your work you 
are laying the foundation of industry and 
thrift and you know you are building respect 
and good will through the service you are giv- 

50 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

ing. You know that you are making certain 
that tomorrow will be a better day on account 
of what you are doing. In fact you are build¬ 
ing today a foundation for tomorrow so it will 
be better for those who follow. Now tell me 
if the boy’s vision of his empire isn’t a parallel 
to an agency of a good life insurance man, 
and tell me if you think there is any man who 
will be happier than you are when you climb 
up to your palace on Sunset Hill. And when 
the lengthening shadows are crawling up 
close to you, will there be any person who can 
look away to the west over the completion of a 
life’s work with any more satisfaction than 
you who have all of your life concentrated 
your efforts on fighting darkness, ignorance, 
vice and crime, and have tried throughout the 
days and the weeks and the months and the 
years to make the world a brighter spot and 
a more enduring home for men, women and 
children? 

9 

LET YOUR WORK WRITE YOUR HISTORY 

In St. Paul’s Church in London is buried 
Sir Christopher Wren. He was a great man 
who contributed much to London. So great 
was he that when he died his last rest¬ 
ing place was in this wonderful old Cathedral 
he had built. He had constructed many of the 
great buildings of London. The simple in- 

51 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

scription on his tomb is a wonderful sermon 
to us: “If you would see his monument, look 
about you.” That is all there is. There is no 
part of his history, no record of his achieve¬ 
ments, but just the simple statement—if you 
would see what he has done look about you, 
the evidence is there. It seems to me that this 
is a wonderful illustration for the life insur¬ 
ance man who is seeking the proper kind of 
life insurance agency. If you are building 
properly you will have the broad vision of 
what you are trying to accomplish and the 
same inscription can be written over your 
tomb, and it will speak louder and with 
more force for you than any monument of 
granite that could be erected to your memory. 
If they would look around you to see what has 
been accomplished they would find numerous 
cases where children have been educated and 
grown up into prominence; great men and 
women who have grown up and benefited the 
community in a way that makes you proud 
that you have had something to do with their 
career. You would find here and there a 
story where life insurance has added its bene¬ 
fits and given protection and opportunities. 
In many places you will find businesses that 
have been built up from the proceeds of life 
insurance, and in many places you will find 
the people remembering your advice and your 


52 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

council which you gave years ago that sent 
them on the right road to thrift, energy and 
prosperity. I can think of nothing that would 
give you more satisfaction than a glimpse 
through the curtain from the great beyond 
and a vision of the results of your life’s work. 

Some morning if you want to have a wid¬ 
ened vision of your business open your mail 
yourself and just look at the envelopes. Here 
you will find one that is a formal envelope of 
business, typewritten, enclosing the remit¬ 
tance to cover the premium and keep the in¬ 
surance in force. Another envelope you will 
find also comes in a business way but with it 
you will find a letter telling of the hardship 
they have had to go through and the privation 
they have had to endure in order to keep the 
policy in force. And then you come to the 
one that gives you the most satisfaction, a 
little old shabby envelope addressed with lead 
pencil, coming from the farthest corner of 
your territory, enclosing the check for the 
premium, and telling you the great satisfac¬ 
tion that comes because this is the last pay¬ 
ment to pay up the policy which has been so 
hard for them to carry, but now they can see 
comfort and pleasures, and express their sat¬ 
isfaction and gratitude because they have 
kept the policy in force. Oh, what a pleasure 
and satisfaction is yours! I tell you if some 

53 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

morning you would just do this you will have 
a different conception of the life insurance 
business because it will give you a vision you 
have not had before, a vision that shows to you 
the character and kind of people you have 
protected and over whom you have spread the 
protecting arms of life insurance that has 
helped to give them satisfaction and comfort 
and better living. 

You know in this world we can struggle 
along and get a great deal of knowledge but 
no matter how much of this knowledge we 
possess it does us no good until we use it. We 
are paid for the knowledge we use and not for 
what we have. Every individual is just the 
same as an institution, his knowledge and his 
ability and his industry are the basis on which 
he receives his pay. He can think of the life 
insurance business in as broad a vision as any 
business. He can concede the life insurance 
business to be big and remunerative from its 
business side; he can think of it in a national 
way and a welfare way; and he can see that 
it makes the world better because it exists, 
but there is one way I like to think of it bet¬ 
ter than in any other way and that is life 
insurance from beginning to end is construc¬ 
tive. There is nothing destructive in the 
whole fabric of life insurance. At no place is 
there any theory or any practice or any prin- 

54 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

ciples that tears down. In the practice of your 
profession from the moment you leave home 
in the morning until you return at night your 
entire day has been given up to the teaching 
of the proper and better principles of life. 
And the greatest thing of all you teach, and 
you must teach if you sell life insurance, is 
that we can build nothing at all on destruc¬ 
tion, that if we are to arrive any place in the 
building of a life it must be done in a way that 
is constructive. We know that an individual 
who hates this or that or the other thing, or 
this or that or the other person arrives at mid¬ 
dle life a confirmed grouch, and there is no 
person that is missed so little in the world as 
the grouch. It is these people who die and 
nobody cares. Maybe they have amassed 
wealth but their passing means nothing to 
people because they have never done anything 
for people. The life insurance business has 
no place for such persons. We find plenty of 
construction and happiness and love but no 
hate. In fact the building of a life insurance 
agency from its very beginning to the end is 
a great drama in which the agent teaches 
everybody to come smiling through, teaches 
them to forget hate, to join hands and build 
and construct and face the future in a way 
that brings pleasure and happiness and con¬ 
tentment. There is no business in the world 


55 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

so fortunate as we are and none that discards 
the word hate as we do. 

THERE IS NO DESTRUCTION IN LIFE INSURANCE 

Shortly after the Armistice was signed it 
was my privilege to stand on the battle field 
of Verdun, that awful field of carnage which 
was active every week and almost every day 
of the World War. There was scarcely a 
week during all the period of the War that 
newspapers did not carry reports of a battle 
at Verdun. Its capture did not mean a de¬ 
cision of the war, and yet because it was an 
old fort some three or four hundred years old 
over which the French and Germans had 
fought many battles there was a pride which 
prompted the Germans to attempt to take 
Verdun at any hazard. There was an equal 
pride of the French to hold this fort at all 
hazards. So as I stood on this field which had 
not yet been cleaned up after the last battle I 
could look over its small area, probably not 
more than ten or fifteen miles, and as far as 
I could see there was not a single inch of this 
ground that had not been churned over and 
over from the high explosive shells used on 
each side. It was said the German artillery 
threw an average of two thousand high ex¬ 
plosive shells into the French area during 
every day of the War. The front lines were 


56 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

moved almost daily, forward and backward, 
so that from the top of the hill back of Verdun 
clear back through the area both sides had 
their lines on almost every part of the field. 

It was here that the German commander 
sent forward his soldiers by the thousands, 
wave after wave, only to be mown down by the 
guns of the Allies until there was one solid em¬ 
bankment of dead men more than a mile in 
length piled so high that the oncoming soldiers 
could no longer get over them. It was on this 
field that within a period of only a few months 
more than a million Allied soldiers went to 
their death and more than a like number of 
Germans. It was here that the French sol¬ 
diers were inspired by the battle cry of “They 
shall not pass.” And be it said to their ever¬ 
lasting honor they did not pass. It was here 
on this field that the high explosives would 
bury trench after trench of live soldiers. It 
was on this field that burials were very quickly 
made and probably the next day exploding 
shells would tear out the earth and the sol¬ 
diers who had been buried, and there was a 
continual intermingling of earth and human 
flesh. 

As I stood there on Dead Man’s Hill beside 
that trench which will never be opened, where 
the guns and bayonets of the soldiers buried 
alive were extending in a jagged line along 


57 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

the trench, the guns held by hands that will 
never be unclasped, as I stood there at this 
place that will in future years be a shrine for 
all brave men, I looked out over this battle 
field of Verdun where there had been com¬ 
plete destruction, and there was not a live 
thing in sight, not a tree or a shrub, and so far 
as I could see in all that area at that time the 
destruction was so great that there was not a 
living thing in existence. At my back on top 
of the hill was a place that was pointed out to 
me as Fort Douaumont. It had been a village 
but there was not a thing in sight except a 
few stones of the old fort. A little ways south 
had been the town of Vaux, a little town of a 
few thousand made up of pleasant homes, but 
there was scarcely any evidence to tell where 
the town once had been. Down in the valley 
I could see places that were pointed out as 
sites of villages and here and there a place 
that had been a farm house, but all was gone. 
Complete destruction everywhere, and with 
this complete destruction of towns and vil¬ 
lages I remembered the record of at least two 
million human beings that had gone to their 
death on this field. But I could see from Dead 
Man’s Hill, as I stood there and thought, the 
great contrast of this field of great destruc¬ 
tion and the agency of a life insurance man. 


58 


THE OBLIGATION OF THE LIFE AGENT 

I tried to picture some life insurance man 
standing on Dead Man’s Hill where I was 
standing and calling back to life the two mil¬ 
lion human beings who had gone to their death 
on that field, and taking them as they came to 
life and making of them what life insurance 
can for human beings. And I fancied I could 
see rising in that valley and on those hills 
other villages to take the place of those de¬ 
stroyed villages, made up of homes and busi¬ 
ness houses. I thought I could see this life 
insurance man in his great calling, aiding 
and assisting to succeed doctors, lawyers, 
merchants and bankers, and men of all oc¬ 
cupations, and I could see the protecting arms 
of life insurance in the little homes in these 
villages. I could see them grow into pleasant 
and happy homes, a benefit to the community 
and the nation. I thought this is parallel 
with what the life insurance agent is doing 
if he is building the right kind of an agency. 
It is true he does not look out over a field of 
complete destruction and desolation and call 
to life his prospect and his policyholder. But 
he finds them already situated in good con¬ 
ditions, and in going about his work he as¬ 
sists them and makes them better, makes his 
community better, brings education where 
there was ignorance and despair; and it 
seemed to me on that day that if a life in- 


59 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


surance man could see the vision I saw and 
picture for himself the field of construction 
as I saw it and realize the importance of con¬ 
struction upon his agency as I had it im¬ 
pressed upon me that day, all life insurance 
men would be better for such thinking. When 
we realize in our life insurance agencies our 
work is constructive at all times, that it is 
without hate and without envy, and that it is 
built on construction and warm fellowship 
and love, then too much importance cannot 
in any instance be given to the great construc¬ 
tive building of a life insurance agency. 


30 












CREDITABLE SUCCESS 



Creditable Success 

The life insurance man accomplishes re¬ 
sults just in proportion to the vision he has 
of his business and the sincerity of his pur¬ 
pose. If his aim be high and he put sincerity 
in all his work then his accomplishments will 
be great. If his ideals be low then he will 
not rise above the average. It is not neces¬ 
sary that we look to the big cities for success, 
nor to the families which constitute our nobil¬ 
ity, nor to the class of statesmen who have 
risen to fame, but we can find success 
wherever there is earnestness of purpose. 
Wherever there is a great desire to do big 
things the individual will progress according 
to his ability. One man has a certain amount 
of ability but exerts himself to the limit and 
makes a very creditable success; another man 
has twice the ability and he does not make a 
success, because he exerts only one-half of his 
ability. But creditable success comes as a 
result of delivering all that is expected ac¬ 
cording to one’s ability. Nor do we need to 
look among the rich for success because it 
seldom comes from that class. 


65 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


Ill the northern part of Italy there was a 
little boy whose parents were so poor they 
could barely keep soul and body together. 
This boy had ambitions to carve and to be a 
sculptor but his parents had no means with 
which to buy him tools or material. He used 
what means he had at hand. One day a man 
came along who recognized in this boy ability 
and genius, and he took him and gave him an 
education. He did not lavish money upon him. 
He did not find him an easy position. He did 
not send him to a great university to be 
trained because there were none at that time, 
but this opportunity was an apprenticeship 
with a sculptor, a chance for him to work for 
several years under a master hand, with no 
pay except his board. These were long years 
of hard toil but they produced a man, and 
when these years of apprenticeship had passed 
this boy went down to Rome, then the seat of 
art and sculpture of the world, and he wrote 
a letter to his benefactor which to a thinking 
man said volumes. He said to this benefactor 
in full appreciation of all that he had done 
for him “I arrived safely and I have been 
able to acquire a block of marble large enough 
out of which I can carve a life size statue.” 
This was said with all the enthusiasm of a 
boy. He was glad he had arrived at this cen¬ 
ter of art but he was proud that he was the 


68 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


sole owner of a piece of marble out of which 
he could carve his own ideas. And this block 
of marble was all his own to carve his own 
character, and his own future. And he did 
carve out of this block of marble something 
that gave him a reputation—it was a Christ 
and a cross, and stands today as one of the 
greatest works of Michael Angelo. 

His life was a great success and it was 
principally due to that great ambition that 
he had to do the best he could at all times. 
He never did anything slightingly, he always 
did his level best. He was willing to take 
other people’s suggestions and improve his 
own ideas with them but he worked entirely 
from his own plans and his own ideas which 
he formulated himself. He was called to 
the Vatican by the Pope and was told that 
the Sistine Chapel which had stood for 
many years without decoration should be 
decorated and that he was commissioned to 
decorate it. He argued and pleaded with 
the Pope that he was not a painter, that 
he was a sculptor, that this was not his job 
and he should not be expected to do it. 
But the Pope insisted that he do it and he 
undertook it and for two long years he 
worked on the ceiling and walls of the Sistine 
Chapel. When he removed his scaffold and 
came down and looked at his work it stood 


67 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

out as a work of art which never before or 
since has been equalled by man, and he per¬ 
formed this because he had undertaken a 
task which he must perform to the very best 
of his ability. 

This is a most opportune time to talk cred¬ 
itable success, because it has a different mean¬ 
ing in the United States than it has ever had 
before. Perhaps we may say that the same 
elements enter into the makeup of success 
today as they did in the past, but even though 
this be so, the same degree of energy and 
enthusiasm and patience which obtained suc¬ 
cess years ago, will not do so today. If we 
go back a century in the commercial history 
of the United States, we find an entirely dif¬ 
ferent situation. We would deal then with 
pioneers in the commercial world. We would 
see the beginning of the great commercial 
houses which are standards of success today 
but conducted upon lines which would not at 
all be recognizable at this time. When the 
railroads were started in this country, they 
had a hard struggle to succeed. The men 
who dreamed of their success and had a vision 
of lines of railroads touching every commun¬ 
ity in this land of ours, carrying our people 
about their business and carrying their 
freight through the country, were looked 
upon as idealists, w T ho had no business about 


68 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 

them. The merchant who sought to extend 
his business beyond one little house which 
dealt only in the articles necessary to supply 
his own locality, was looked upon as a vision¬ 
ary and an impractical man. Yet all of these 
kinds of businesses went forward and made 
successes and the foundations for great busi¬ 
nesses were laid so firmly that they have im¬ 
proved to our present state of success. But 
the same methods used at that time in build¬ 
ing the foundation for these various busi¬ 
nesses, would not get anywhere today. 

We may look at an institution as having 
made a great success because it had great 
opportunities. We say too, perhaps, Marshall 
Field built up his business because the oppor¬ 
tunities were so great at that time and that 
he could take advantage of them with great 
profit. But have we stopped to think that 
Marshall Field did not have anywhere near 
the opportunities in the mercantile business 
that there are today and that he had hard 
work and that it was not by the opportunities 
which he had but by the methods he employed, 
that made his firm a great success? It was the 
hard work that he put into the institution 
that made it grow. It would take entirely 
different methods today to make success, and 
if Marshall Field were living today he would 
have up-to-date methods which would make 

69 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


his firm still stand out as the greatest in the 
mercantile world. He did do this over a long, 
long period of success. He built the business; 
he improved it as conditions demanded; and 
as this country progressed, he progressed 
with it. If the people wanted a certain article, 
it was his business to anticipate that want 
and have it in his store. If something went 
out of date, it was his business to take it out 
of the store. In other words, he kept up with 
the times and his sales force kept up with the 
times. His own methods were the ones which 
directed his store, and yet they had to be 
executed by many employees and this was 
done in a way that made success and they 
kept up with the times. 

Suppose he had lost faith in himself. 
Suppose that he had lost faith in the con¬ 
ditions of this country. Suppose that he had 
convinced himself that the United States 
did not need a great wholesale mercantile 
house and that it was more profitable for 
him to conduct only a retail store. Then 
he would have been a small man and his in¬ 
stitution would not have grown. We say that 
he was located in Chicago, the second greatest 
city of the United States, a fact which was 
sufficient in itself to make his institution grow 
to a very great success; and yet we find that 
there is a fault in this argument when we 


70 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


realize that there are hundreds and thousands 
of stores in Chicago that have started the 
same way and have not reached success. We 
must conclude then that it was the man and 
the rules and the institution itself that made 
success and not conditions. Yes, and we must 
add one other thing, the faith that the man 
had in his country and in his city and in his 
own institution. He knew if he did the right 
thing that he would build an institution which 
the American people would support, and he 
did so, and it is known today as the greatest 
mercantile institution in the United States. 
Not only does it have this reputation here but 
it has it abroad, and in no place in the world 
is there such a store as Marshall Field & 
Company of Chicago. 

Sixty years ago there was a boy running 
as messenger boy on the train from Port 
Huron, Michigan, to Detroit. He was a good 
messenger boy and made a success in his 
business and he made a creditable success be¬ 
cause he did a little bit more business than 
the average messenger boy did and made more 
money and was known as a success in that 
business. But he had greater ambitions. He 
wanted to make a success in another line. He 
did not want to be limited to the success of a 
messenger boy on a train. So he started to 
do some experimenting with chemicals and 

71 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

every day he would bring with him some 
chemicals on the train and when business 
was slack he would experiment with them. 
The train men could see no good in this kind 
of business. One day in his experimenting 
he set the car on fire and was immediately 
discharged. That day started Thomas A. 
Edison on his way to success. Just as he had 
made a creditable success as messenger boy, 
so would he make creditable success in every 
other one of his undertakings. He fitted him¬ 
self into conditions as they presented them¬ 
selves. He did not wait for an opportunity 
but he made the opportunity for himself. He 
did not demand that the country give him a 
living, or that it owed one to him, but he made 
for himself a place in the world, and has con¬ 
tinued to do so for the seventy-five years of 
his life. He realized that there is nothing that 
will take the place of work for him and that 
work must adapt itself to present day con¬ 
ditions. He knows that the same kind of 
work he did fifty years ago would not be suf¬ 
ficient today. He knows that the various in¬ 
stitutions with which he is connected could 
not pay dividends on the same methods which 
he used at that time. He has been an inventor 
and his inventions have done as much as 
those of any man for the progress of the 
world, and he is alive and up-to-date today 

72 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 

with all conditions that will make better suc¬ 
cess for himself and for his firm. 

About the time the United States was hav¬ 
ing its trouble with the Civil War, Italy was 
made up of a lot of little states and they were 
in continual warfare and had been in such a 
condition for many a day. A little bit of a 
province lived by itself and just as a certain 
individual or a number of individuals would 
be located in that particular province with 
more energy and force than others, just so 
was its standing among all of the states. At 
times one of the states would control a whole 
territory, would try, as it were, to rule the 
other states. About that time it took a war 
in the United States to do away with the 
slave question and to unite our different states 
into one Union. Jefferson Davis represented 
the South and with many other leaders, hon¬ 
est in their convictions, they fought a long 
war in this country for what they thought 
were great principles. Our states were 
united. But at that same time there was a 
revolutionist in Italy, who had the idea of 
joining the different provinces of Italy into 
one state and today all over Italy, Garibaldi, 
this revolutionist, is honored for what he ac¬ 
complished. He was indeed a true revolu¬ 
tionist. He incited war and was the leader, 


73 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

but out of his efforts came forth a united Italy 
that stands under its government today. 

The methods used at that time would not 
obtain today because people have progressed to 
that point where there is more of the arbitra¬ 
tion and less of the fighting than in previous 
times. In the past few years we have seen 
many countries and many provinces united 
through revolutionary action on their part. 
Warfare has grown today to be of such nature 
that if carried on for the purpose of forcing 
provinces to unite, the loss of life would be so 
great that they could not long exist. We are 
glad that we have the spirit of arbitration 
and of compromise, and we are glad to fit 
ourselves into this kind and way of dealing. 
But suppose that during those strenuous per¬ 
iods of our own Civil War, that Lincoln had 
lost faith in himself. He had nothing with 
which to work as we have today. He had no 
great army nor did he have the arms with 
which wars are fought today. Suppose he 
had lost faith in the principles on which our 
Government is established, he would not have 
been the great man he is today, nor would he 
have won the war. But he had an abiding 
faith in himself and in his country and in the 
principles for which he was contending. It 
was not given to him any more than it is to 
anyone of us to know what kind of a man he 


74 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


was to be, nor to know what kind of a repu¬ 
tation he was to have. But Lincoln knew that 
it was his duty to put into whatever task that 
was at hand, the very best that he had in him. 
So he made good as a clerk in the little store 
in Illinois. He made good as a lawyer after 
he had educated himself. He made good as 
a legislator and as a statesman, and as Presi¬ 
dent of the United States. He employed the 
methods and means necessary to make himself 
a success according to the times in which he 
lived. He kept up-to-date just as any other 
person. In fact, men who make themselves 
grow, usually live ahead of the time. It is 
necessary that they do so because they are 
leaders. 

Fifty years ago the life insurance business 
was a struggling institution in this country. 
It has progressed to a considerable magnitude 
and yet there are not many life insurance 
agencies in the United States which are fifty 
years old. If we could go to the life insurance 
agent who has been in business for fifty years, 
we would find that the methods he used to 
make a success when he started in the busi¬ 
ness could not be used at all today. If he has 
been able to stay in the business for fifty 
years he has made a success and a creditable 
success and yet the methods which he has 
used to make his success have changed from 


75 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

year to year, as the conditions of the country 
have changed. His methods have changed 
just as much as have the principles and 
methods of the business itself. 

An illustration will be good on this point. 
We are told that one Mr. Waterman was a 
life insurance agent at one time and that in 
soliciting business he carried with him a little 
bottle of ink which he kept attached by a 
string to a button on his coat. He used his ink 
to write his applications, not because they 
were required to be written with ink, so that a 
photograph copy could be made as now, but 
because they required permanency for the 
application. Very often he had the misfor¬ 
tune to spill his ink and then he had difficulty 
in getting his application. He invented a 
fountain pen with which to write his applica¬ 
tions and the first time he tried to use it, when 
he handed the applicant the fountain pen and 
he tried to write his signature on the dotted 
line, all of the ink ran out of the pen and made 
a great blot on the application. It so fright¬ 
ened the applicant because he thought that 
the spilling of this ink was a bad omen, that 
he would not sign the application and never 
did. But Mr. Waterman perfected his foun¬ 
tain pen as we have it today, and soon after¬ 
wards he could have the applicant sign the 
application with his own invention without 

76 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


taking any chances. These were the methods 
of business then and they have improved in 
keeping with the times. But suppose the life 
man had lost faith in himself and in his busi¬ 
ness as many of them did, what would have 
been the result? Failure. 

As I said before, we are apt to look at the 
conditions which surrounded a different per¬ 
iod in which people have made success and 
console ourselves with the statement that they 
had better conditions than we have to make 
good and that we do not have the opportun¬ 
ities that they had. The opportunities are 
as we make them. If an institution did not 
progress and make good in itself there are 
no conditions which could be presented which 
could make that institution grow to a great 
success. We are apt to look at some particu¬ 
lar agency in the life insurance business and 
realize what a great success this agency has 
made and we are apt to say that it has better 
territory and bigger business and more suc¬ 
cess because conditions are better. Yet we 
can disprove this theory by looking around 
us and finding an agency which is located in 
a territory which is not such a good territory, 
in which there are no large cities, in which 
there are not so many wealthy people, but all 
of this has been offset by the fact that there 
has been an ambitious, energetic agent, who 


77 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

fitted himself into conditions and built with 
what he had at hand. We know that this is 
what builds an agency, the same as builds a 
bank, or a mercantile business, or makes a 
statesman. The elements that make for success 
are just about the same in all businesses but 
these same elements are necessary before suc¬ 
cess can be had. We know that most any man 
with a little effort can make a living and that 
he can get along, and we also know that it 
takes yet a little more effort and foresight 
and management to make a creditable success. 

If we stop to think about it, people class¬ 
ify themselves into about three groups, and 
this classification they make themselves just 
as surely as they exist. There is that class of 
people who are content to go along and exist 
from the cradle to the grave without doing 
anything, without accomplishing anything, 
without any object in life. That is the one 
big class. And then there is another class 
who have a little bit more ambition and at¬ 
tempt to do a little bit more, and they too are 
a great big class. But there is another class, 
and they are a very small one, who have ambi¬ 
tion to do good in this world, who realize that 
the Lord gave them just a little more talent 
than He did somebody else, and that He ex¬ 
pects them to take care of those talents and 
account for them, and he has a desire to do 


78 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 

good for humanity. His desire may take the 
form of a mercantile business and he may 
want to supply the people with the necessities 
and conveniences of life in a way that will 
make them better. He may have a desire as 
a statesman to make the laws better for the 
people, or he may through inventions desire 
to benefit human beings. But whatever his 
calling may be his desire is to better the wel¬ 
fare of men, women and children, and there 
is no business on earth that so combines all 
the elements of other businesses in doing good 
as does the life insurance business. No other 
business is so entwined with love and mar¬ 
riage and children and old age and death as 
this calling of ours. I want to say to you the 
names of the life insurance agents who have 
built agencies, who have built estates, and 
who have indeed built the life insurance busi¬ 
ness to what it is today, are just as bright 
names as those who have accomplished great 
things in the building up of other businesses. 
And there are many life insurance agents 
whose names in their community are just as 
bright and just as dear to the people with 
whom they deal as are the names of Marshall 
Field and Edison and Lincoln, and any other 
man who built any other kind of a business 
or who accomplished any great thing for 
humanity. They in their work have done 

79 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

more to make possible the improvement and 
the betterment of the men, women and chil¬ 
dren of our country than any other one kind 
of business. 

If the railroads unite the different parts 
of our country and carry its freight from 
place to place, they accomplish a great good, 
but they had to be financed. If Marshall Field, 
in building his great institution, gave the peo¬ 
ple better goods at lower prices, and in fact 
put these goods in reach of the people, he did a 
great thing, and yet back of that had to be 
finance. There had to be protection for the 
people who were building the institution and 
there had to be credit, and all of this was at 
least partially established by life insurance 
and especially by the life insurance agent. 
The life insurance business has gone hand in 
hand with the progress of our country. Many 
of our agencies look on some other business 
with envy. They say, “Well, I just wish I 
were in the banking business and had the 
opportunities that there are there, or the 
mercantile business, or the railroad business. 
I could do so much more than I am doing at 
the present time and I could make real ac¬ 
complishments. Why the opportunities that 
the men have in those businesses are wonder¬ 
ful and here I have to go around the com¬ 
munity selling life insurance policies in the 

80 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


amounts of $1,000, $2,000 and sometimes 

$ 10 , 000 .” 

That is just the point I want to make. 
If you were in the banking business you 
would have found that during the war 
time instead of the great prosperity which 
you had and which you built, that you would 
have been financing the Liberty Loans and 
you would have been restricted in the invest¬ 
ments which you as a banker could have made 
and your profits w r ould have been less. And 
you would find today that the Federal Reserve 
Bank would be telling you what kind of in¬ 
vestments you could make. And the demands 
which would be made on you by institutions 
on the verge of failure would be such that 
you would be driven almost to distraction. If 
you were in the mercantile business you would 
have to write off a depreciation on your stock 
of goods which would impair your credit 
very materially. But in the life insurance 
business you had a great success in 1918, 1919 
and 1920 . You did more business than you 
ever dreamed could be done in the life insur¬ 
ance business. You raised the life insurance 
business in its standard over that standard 
which prevailed prior to the war, to a height 
which you had never dreamed that it could go. 
Before the war occasionally you sold a large 
policy but the policies which are sold today 

81 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

are larger in amount and there is no effort 
needed to convince people about the necessity 
and value of life insurance. You have not had 
to write off any depreciation in your business. 
You have had no one to tell you that you must 
restrict your efforts. All that you have to do 
is to follow the conditions of the times. When 
these conditions went up, you went up with 
them very easily and you had a wonderful 
business and you were prosperous. You knew 
that those conditions could not exist perman¬ 
ently. You predicted that the time would 
come when it would be harder for you to sell 
business and you would have to work harder 
to make your sales. Then when that same 
prediction came true, many of you failed to 
adjust yourselves, but you were content to 
classify yourselves with that great class of 
human beings who sit down and wail over 
conditions when they go wrong. And instead 
of taking advantage of what you had to work 
with, instead of making for yourself a cred¬ 
itable production, you drifted along with the 
old statement that nothing could be done be- 
cause people had no money. 

At the same time children were being 
born, people had the same kind of respons¬ 
ibilities for those dependent upon them that 
they ever had, people were growing old and 
needed the protection in their old age, and 

82 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


people were dying and leaving their fam¬ 
ilies destitute, and the life insurance agent 
who made himself know that he could pro¬ 
duce some business, even though it was 
not as large as he had produced in the pros¬ 
perous times, has kept up his production and 
has made creditable success. It has taken an 
effort large enough to meet conditions, to 
make creditable success today. And the point 
which I have tried to make is that the individ¬ 
ual must adjust himself to the conditions 
which obtain and which have been created by 
the thoughts of the majority of the people in 
this country on any particular subject. If 
the people in this country think along a certain 
line it makes a condition and there is no use 
of any one of us individuals trying to change 
that thought. But we can better adjust our¬ 
selves to whatever the thought is and go along 
to success with them. It takes a full head of 
steam and systematic work to make credit¬ 
able success at any time. But it does not take 
a big city, nor a famous man, nor a famous 
business to make success. In fact that would 
be building from the top down. But if we do 
the thing at hand better than somebody else, 
better than the average person, then we make 
creditable success. 

There can be no standard for success. We 
can make a standard for service but the stand- 


83 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

ard for success depends upon the individual 
himself. A laborer, who on small wages buys 
a home and raises a family, has made credit¬ 
able success. The man in the little town with 
a small business and a small capital, who 
builds his business into that community so 
well that he gets the trade, had made cred¬ 
itable success. The school teacher who year 
after year teaches the children in a locality 
and so molds their thoughts that they make 
good citizens, has made a creditable success. 
But the life insurance man, more than all 
the others, while he has made a success for 
himself financially has made that greater 
success of benefiting human beings with every 
act that he has done and to such an extent 
that his efforts have not only benefited his 
community but have made the entire nation 
better. The life insurance man who is known 
in the community as the life insurance ad¬ 
viser, who lives well and takes care of his 
family, has built up a business that is known 
as a good business of service, has made a 
creditable success, whether his agency totals 
a volume of $1,000,000 or $50,000,000. It 
does not take volume to give service. It does 
not take volume to make creditable success, 
but it does take prompt, careful and sys¬ 
tematic attention to the business at hand to 
make a creditable success. We can well 


84 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


emulate Field and Edison and Lincoln by 
adjusting ourselves to conditions and turning 
them to our own selves and our own success. 

So when you think about the opportunities 
in the life insurance business as compared 
with the opportunities in any other kind of 
business, just remember the little story of 
the boy in the mountains of Kentucky. 

I heard not long ago, a story of a small 
boy—small for his years—who worked for a 
farmer down in the hill country of Kentucky. 
He was assigned tasks well beyond his years. 
But he went at them with a brave heart, and 
as he went about his work he was constantly 
cheered by a sight that met his view. On a 
bright day, away over on a distant hill, he 
could see what he called “The House with the 
Golden Windows.” The ambition of his young 
life was that he might some day, some time, 
come within close range of this house. So 
the very first day that he was told he could 
have to himself he started, early in the morn¬ 
ing. He trudged along the valleys over the 
streams, crossed the mountains, until in the 
evening he came to that thing of which he was 
in quest. But he was astonished, and de¬ 
pressed and downhearted, for there before 
him stood an old, ramshackle house, the roof 
caved in, the veranda sagging at one corner, 
and a general look of having been forsaken. 

85 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

While he leaned on the fence contemplating 
this ruin of his dreams, there stood beside 
him a little girl, who asked him what he 
wanted. He told her how he had come all 
this distance and about his disappointment 
at not finding the House with the Golden 
Windows. The little girl said, “Come with 
me, I will show you the House with the Gold¬ 
en Windows.” She took him around the 
other side of the house and pointed away 
across the hills where stood a house whose 
windows were resplendent with the rays of 
the setting sun. “There,” she said, “there is 
the House with the Golden Windows.” And 
as the boy gazed, it dawned upon him that it 
was the house he had left in the early morning. 

And so it is with us, my friends, we all, 

if we will, live in a House with Golden Win- 

% 

dows, but the light that shall go forth shall 
be the light that shines from within. Outside 
conditions can never make us successful. The 
motor is inside and must be operated by us. 

One man may become famous because he 
has engaged in some particular line of busi¬ 
ness and has built it up perhaps very rapidly. 
One man, through a discovery or an inven¬ 
tion makes himself great. Another person 
builds up his business by slow, hard, steady 
work, and builds it into that business which 
is firm and progressive, just as Cecil Rhodes, 

86 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 

the Englishman, went into South Africa and 
built up a business which changed the whole 
southern part of Africa; just as Marshall 
Field, in the building of his business changed 
the mercantile market of the world. But the 
business that is really worth while and the 
reputation that is really of value and lives on 
after the builder has gone, is that business 
which builds day by day, a little at a time, as 
does the life insurance agency, and with 
every step of that building it makes some per¬ 
son better, it gives some family better condi¬ 
tions in which to live. It does a little toward 
improving the conditions of our nation and 
it makes our entire population better off for 
this builder having lived. 

The Peace Conference at Washington has 
accomplished some good. What the good is 
we do not know. That it will prevent wars 
for all time we do not believe, but if it pre¬ 
vents them only for a short period it will have 
accomplished much good. If President Hard¬ 
ing could assure the people of the world that 
the Peace Conference had really accomplished 
a disarmament of the nations, and that there 
would be no wars among these nations, his 
accomplishment would be the greatest of any 
president we have ever had, and he would go 
down in history as the greatest president. If 
you could tell the school children in your 

87 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

locality that there would be no more war, 
and if this message could be carried to the 
rising generation over the entire United 
States, it would be the greatest message 
that could be carried. We all know that war 
is wrong and it has been said recently that 
it is no honor for our boys to be called to 
foreign soil and to fight in the mud and in 
the ditches and die like dogs, but that it is 
a bigger honor to live and work and build 
for the State. It is an honor to uphold 
our state and to fight for the protection of our 
Government and for freedom and for right. 
But war that is imposed simply by the ideas 
of some individual and calls out the youths 
who are to be the future business men of our 
country, does no honor to himself and confers 
no honor upon his army. And yet if that one 
message could be carried to the rising genera¬ 
tion of the United States that war is wrong 
and that there would be no more of it, and 
any one of you could carry this message you 
would make yourself famous. 

No one by word or statement can carry 
this message. No assurance could be given 
that it would be true if he could. But don’t 
you in your work carry a message almost 
as great? At least it is greater than that 
of any other individual in any other kind 
of work, because your effort in creating es- 

88 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


tates is to make people more contented. Con¬ 
tentment cannot come from wealth alone, 
but we do know that if people have the 
necessities of life and if they are not ir¬ 
ritated and disturbed and worried there 
will be very little uprising; and if the people 
are contented and especially now after the ex¬ 
perience of the great war, it will be very 
difficult to urge them into a war and take 
them away from their happy and contented 
homes. And if over every home in the Unit¬ 
ed States there would be that arm of protec¬ 
tion which is given by the life insurance 
companies through a life insurance policy, 
there would be more contentment, there would 
be so much contentment that you as life in¬ 
surance agents would almost be carrying this 
message that there would be no more war. 
Every time you deliver a policy of life insur¬ 
ance you help carry this message. 

I do not mean to convey the idea that life 
insurance is a cure for all the ailments of 
the nation and its people, but i do want to 
emphasize the importance of the life insurance 
business as a part of our nation today. We 
could no more divorce the life insurance busi¬ 
ness from the machinery of the nation than 
we could take out of it the banking business 
or any other business, however important. I 
believe that we could more conveniently do 


89 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

without any other particular business in this 
country than we could the life insurance busi¬ 
ness. And I am trying to tell to you how this 
business has progressed, just the same as any 
other business and how the man who makes a 
success must take advantage of the progress 
and changes and conditions just as they pre¬ 
sent themselves from year to year. 

You remember just a few years ago, less 
than ten years, the people of this country be¬ 
gan to talk about incomes. They desired to be 
assured of an income for their families. Mr. 
Carnegie handled and invested the money for 
many widows and different people so they 
would be assured of an income and not lose 
the principal. And then the life insurance 
people who had already been doing an income 
business took up the theory and in a little 
while every insurance agent in the country 
was soliciting income insurance. And today 
there is probably more income insurance be¬ 
ing sold than any other kind of policy, just 
because the people realized the necessity of a 
permanent income for those dependent upon 
them. It was an improvement and the life 
insurance man fitted himself into this prog¬ 
ress and made good. 

More recently than that, the people of 
this country realized the necessity of pro¬ 
tection for all kinds of business. They real- 

90 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


ized if a business was being built up to any 
size, it was necessary to have credit and 
that some person or persons in the firm were 
responsible for the credit of the institution, 
and for its progress and for its depart¬ 
ments and management, and they realized 
that those particular persons were of great 
value to the institution and that their loss 
would mean a great loss to the business, 
hence they demanded protection, a money 
protection which would in a way offset the 
loss of these particular persons. Then the 
live up-to-date life insurance man again took 
advantage of this popular idea of the Ameri¬ 
can people and did a great volume of business 
insurance. The live insurance man today is 
progressive and adjusts himself to conditions 
because those conditions are different than 
they were two years ago, during the period of 
prosperity. He knows that they are bigger 
and better than ever. He knows some people 
can and will buy. If one class is hard up he 
turns to the ones who are more prosperous. 
He thinks. He acts. He works with common 
sense ideas. He has not lost faith in his busi¬ 
ness. 

Sometimes I think that the people of the 
United States have been going so rapidly and 
have been progressing so splendidly that their 
progress and their prosperity has taken away 

91 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

one quality which has injured them very 
much, and that is patience. If we cannot get 
a train from one town to another the minute 
we decide we want to go, we are out of sorts. 
If we cannot get a shipment of goods sent out 
immediately so we can supply a customer to¬ 
morrow morning, we think we are not getting 
service. We pride ourselves upon the speed 
we have acquired in this country. Yet some¬ 
times I wonder whether it is a credit to 
us. I do not believe in being backward. I 
do not believe that our nation should go back¬ 
ward for a day. But I do know that we as a 
people could get along just as well if we would 
not have the great overhead expense which is 
necessary to make the speed which we do. I 
believe we would have a little bit more faith 
in our institutions and in ourselves if we took 
it just a little bit more slowly. I do not advo¬ 
cate going as far back as some of the old 
countries, Spain for instance. This old coun¬ 
try, which was old before America was dis¬ 
covered, has seemingly not progressed any 
whatever. 

One is surprised as he crosses the beauti¬ 
ful Pyrenees Mountains from France going 
down into Spain and sees a country that is 
rugged and beautiful to look at, with land 
that ought to have prosperity in its develop¬ 
ment, and sees the little stone houses that have 


92 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 

been standing on the farms and in the villages 
without change for perhaps a thousand years, 
and sees the same fields being plowed today 
with oxen with a plow that is little more than 
a crooked stick, and the production of the soil 
sufficient only to make a poor living for the 
farmer. Even the cattle appear to be of that 
ancient race of which we have seen pictures 
years ago, but the people seem to be getting 
along and are contented and happy. Once in 
a while you will see a little bit more improve¬ 
ment in a particular locality where a man 
has made a little bit better success and has 
had a desire to surpass his fellowmen. He is 
the wealthy individual in that locality, and 
yet his wealth amounts to very little. This is 
not progress. It is stagnation. And yet those 
people have faith in their country, and there 
is sentiment connected with those people. At 
our great speed we are losing our sentiment. 

The hard headed business man of the Unit¬ 
ed States will tell you that business and senti¬ 
ment will not mix, that business must be 
done on a cold blooded basis and that senti¬ 
ment has no place in it; and yet I am wonder¬ 
ing if we wouldn’t be a great deal better off 
if we had a little more sentiment connected 
with our business than we do have. I am 
wondering if we can’t go back and emulate 
the great Lincoln who had sentiment in every- 

93 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

thing that he did; who realized that he was 
dealing with human beings and not with 
machines, and that they thought and had 
warm blood in their veins just the same as he 
had and that their hearts thrilled and re¬ 
sponded with an act of kindness. And I am 
just wondering if the other businesses of this 
country couldn't take on a little bit of the 
sentiment of the life insurance business and 
be better off for so doing. We know that we 
are traveling under sealed orders from the 
cradle to the grave and that no person is 
given the power to read through the envelope 
and see what those orders are. We do not 
know how far we are to go. We do not know 
what the end of the day will bring. It re¬ 
mains for us to do our very best according to 
the standards that have been set down and if 
we could have impressed upon us just a little 
bit more of faith, we could see our duty clearer 
and we would make our tasks easier. 

I think I can say that the people in this 
country do not know what faith is. I do not 
want to be understood that it is religious 
faith to which I am referring. If I were re¬ 
ferring to that then there would be no ques¬ 
tion in my mind that the country does not 
know what faith is. There is no question in 
my mind but that the little shrines that are 
set up all over France, Italy and Spain and 

94 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


the other countries of Europe, the very pass¬ 
ing of which makes one think of the serious¬ 
ness of life, makes the people and the country 
better. In Canada there is a shrine to which 
many people go. It is called the Shrine of 
St. Anne. I don't know the legend of it and I 
don't care whether there is a word of truth 
in the legend or not, the very fact that it 
makes people think and think seriously, does 
good. I am not prepared to say whether the 
legend of Lourdes in France is true to the 
letter, but I know it brings 8,000 to 10,000 
people daily to the place to express their faith. 
Whether they come out of curiosity or not, 
they must of necessity go away better off for 
what they have seen. I do know that the 
people who visit Rome and who go up the 
stairs down which Christ descended after his 
trial before Pilate, feel that they have had 
thoughts in this sacred place which have done 
them good. The people of other countries 
seem to put somewhat the same kind of faith 
and loyalty into their business. They honor 
its tradition and its sentiments. Suppose 
that we gave just a little bit of the same kind 
of thought to our business. And if we look as 
far ahead as we can to see the good that our 
business does—not the dollars it will make— 
won't we make it better and won't we make 
ourselves better? Won't we come nearer to 


95 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

uniting the people in our particular line of 
business than we will in any other way? More 
countries have been joined together in bonds 
of friendship through the good thoughts of its 
people, possibly on business lines, but usually 
along lines which class them as neighbors and 
friends, than in any other way. We cannot 
force the life insurance man in the United 
States to join hands and go forward as one 
great band of successful men, just because 
we are in this business, but the idea of pro¬ 
tection, and good and benefit to humanity has 
done more to draw them together than any¬ 
thing else we could have done. 

It seems to be a very big task for life in¬ 
surance men to meet this period of readjust¬ 
ment, notwithstanding the fact that we are 
forced to admit the business of 1921 was much 
greater than the business of 1914, 1915, 1916, 
1917 or 1918, and yet those are the years 
which we refer to as the period before the 
war. It seems awfully hard for us to get 
down to realizing we actually have very good 
conditions in this country. We blame the 
farmer for taking his great profits during the 
prosperous period of high prices and then 
grumbling so much now on account of hard 
times and low prices. We say that he ought 
to be willing to equalize the two periods. And 
yet we go right along doing the same thing 

96 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 

and making ourselves the very same kind of 
pessimistic grumblers. We don’t seem to real¬ 
ize the opportunities today are so much great¬ 
er than they ever were before, that we have 
at our hand so many means of getting busi¬ 
ness that we never had before, and which are 
permanent and fixed, that we ought to be 
happy. If we do not write as big a volume of 
business as we did in 1919 and 1920, I be¬ 
lieve that we can truthfully say that it is our 
own fault because we have not met the condi¬ 
tions in the particular locality. We have not 
used our initiative enough. We have not 
planned to cope with the conditions. We have 
agencies who have done more business than 
they did in prosperous times because they 
have met the situation and because they have 
not tried to do business in the same manner 
as they did during the period of prosperity. 
If there was a reason why life insurance 
should have been taken at the time of prosper¬ 
ity, perhaps that same reason is not now the 
important one. But the live man has realized 
what is the real reason and what is the real 
necessity and what will appeal to people and 
has adjusted himself accordingly. He has not 
been contented to just go along and take what 
came to him but he has been an organized 
force for achievement, and advance he must 
in some way. If the old methods won’t do, he 

97 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

discovers new methods. It is at least pictur¬ 
esque to realize that some person has adhered 
to the old style of doing things. It amuses 
us, it entertains us, and always we say that 
we wouldn't like to go back to it, and yet 
don't you know that is the fight that the in¬ 
dividual has always to make to progress? In 
the creation of the world the Lord divided the 
light and the darkness. Humanity has fought 
ever since to keep them separate. If we re¬ 
lax our efforts they run together and all is 
dark. Without a continual fight we have 
ignorance instead of education—immorality 
instead of morality, night instead of day. 

The little town of Larocq in France, was 
built during the period that the Romans ruled 
France. It is on top of a mountain that is 
probably 1000 feet high. The entire town 
covers about as much area as one city block 
and it is built on solid stone. There is prob¬ 
ably a population of 150 people, not more than 
that. The little church in this town has on it 
the date of its erection, 1642. This town has 
stood probably without any change whatever 
since that time and maybe long before. The 
people have lived there as they do in other 
places and there has been no progress. I was 
very greatly impressed and entertained by 
going to this town and yet I wouldn't like to 
live there. It would not be progress for me, 

98 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


although it is unique. Those people appear 
to be happy but as a progressive individual I 
could not be. They have stood still for all 
these years. 

Contrast that with the little beehive of 
Belgium, which has continually day after 
day to fight back the sea in order to exist. 
It is necessary that they build great dikes to 
keep the ocean back so they may have their 
land, and yet the beautiful farms, the most 
productive in all the world, show to the vis¬ 
itor that they have persevered, that they have 
met the condition surrounding them, and that 
they have gone ahead under conditions which 
would be discouraging to many people. Dur¬ 
ing the war, water was turned into their 
fields and great territories were flooded and 
it was found that the soil was of such a nature 
that when it was flooded with water it was 
impossible for a human being to walk across 
it; that it was just like quicksand, that he 
would mire in until he would be drowned, and 
many thousands of our soldiers during the 
war died because they could not withstand 
the swamps of Belgium when the land was 
flooded. And yet when it was reclaimed by 
the Belgians after the war, and the water shut 
out, the beautiful fields were covered with 
poppies to the extent that it seemed that 
nature had united all her forces to cover up 

99 


> 

> j 

> > 

> > 

) > > 

> . 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

and obliterate this awful carnage of death. 
And with their progress and ingenuity the 
Belgians had again put their country into 
cultivation and made of it the success for 
which they are noted. During the war much 
was said about Flanders Fields and it is true 
that the poppies grew there and that it was 
beautiful, and that it was known during the 
war as a great carnage of death, but the Bel¬ 
gians make more out of it than a beautiful 
field. They maintain the beauty and at the 
same time make it productive. They have 
patience to do this. 

We cannot stand still. In a business way 
we must either go ahead or backward. The 
history of any community or any country is a 
biography of the men who have made credit¬ 
able success. If you would write the history 
of your state you would necessarily write the 
biographies of the outstanding characters in 
the state. We could not write the history of 
our nation if we did not include Lincoln, and 
Grant and Roosevelt. You could not write 
the history of your locality if you did not in¬ 
clude the biographies of its successful business 
men. And the history of the community 
molds itself from the very ideas and progress 
of its people and the history of your commun¬ 
ity ought to include the history of the life in¬ 
surance agents and a history of their work. 

100 



t <>c 

) 5 ‘ 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


And that work ought to be regarded as sacred 
because you have chosen it as your profession 
and by so choosing you ought to have decided 
that every act of it and every duty you per¬ 
form in your work should be divine. We 
ought to look at our work very much in the 
manner that the ancient sculptors and paint¬ 
ers looked at their work. Their occupation 
was not one necessarily to make money but 
to build a reputation. The great sculptor in 
Florence, Italy, who was the chief trainer of 
Michael Angelo, put in all of his life in mak¬ 
ing three doors. He was awarded a contract 
to make a door for the front of the church in 
Florence. He was granted enough compensa¬ 
tion to live on, and for twelve years he worked 
in making the door. But it was made so well 
and so beautifully that it hangs today as it 
has hung for hundreds of years as a mem¬ 
orial to the man who made it. When he had 
this door finished he was given the contract to 
make two more doors and that work occupied 
his entire life time, but he made a creditable 
success. He made for himself a reputation 
that will live among artists for all time. It 
was said of the artists in that period that who 
ever allowed himself to rest, stepped into the 
background. He had to be going all the time. 
He had to be on the alert. He had to progress, 
and in their progress they accomplished 
things. 


101 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

The city of Florence has produced more 
artists and more great men in sculpture 
and painting than any other city in the world, 
and to me there is a good reason for this. Like 
all other cities Florence had her troubles and 
fights with outside countries. They had their 
families who contended for local honors the 
same as any other, but there was a united 
public spirit on all questions which affected 
Florence. If a beautiful maiden died, some 
one wrote a poem which was on everyone’s 
lips. If a chapel was dedicated, no one must 
be absent from the exercises. If a foot race 
occurred in the streets, everybody decorated 
his place. It was like one great united family. 
If a person contended for fame, Florence 
stood up for him and helped him in every way 
possible, gave him the opportunity, but to the 
outside world he was always a citizen of Flor¬ 
ence and entitled to all that they could give 
him. To them a Florentine was the best in 
the world. So on this kind of a theory Flor¬ 
ence built so w T ell that she has endured and 
lived longer than all the other cities of olden 
times. 

Since history is only the study of events 
as they stand in relation to the history 
of great men, we know that it will go on and 
progress because there will still be great men 
in the world. We know that just as there 

102 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


have been great men in the life insurance busi¬ 
ness, there will be other great men and we 
know that the history of our business will 
continue to be written around the biographies 
of the men who do things. We know that the 
history of life insurance will continue to 
be the history of its successful agents, men 
who have made creditable success. We know 
that the heroic age is no longer in the past, 
but we expect it in the noble work of the 
future. We go forward, not backward. Our 
view of the world has reached a crisis. We 
look with contempt behind us and expect new 
and better records for the future. We real¬ 
ize that the stability of the life insurance busi¬ 
ness is without question and that the records 
to be built in the future will surpass all that 
have been made in the past, and we know 
that life insurance men will have their part 
in all this building and that the biographies 
of the life insurance agents which will con¬ 
stitute her history will be just as bright as 
those of any other business in the world. 

Have you ever asked yourself what is the 
object of life insurance, and what is the object 
of the life insurance agent? Do you get in¬ 
spiration out of your business? And what is 
it that brings inspiration? If the life insur¬ 
ance man has never asked himself these ques¬ 
tions he has never entered thoroughly into the 


103 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

the great business of life insurance. If he 
has never answered them successfully to him¬ 
self, he has never got that enthusiasm which 
will make him go forward with a full head 
of steam and a full head of steam is necessary 
today to make a creditable success. If you 
have asked yourself these questions and if 
you have answered them, you know that the 
object of life insurance is the betterment of 
people and the people are the men, women 
and children with whom we associate every 
day. For all time tragedies have been written 
about the misuse and abuse of individuals 
and it is those same people about whom trag¬ 
edies have been written and about whom they 
will continue to be written, that the life in¬ 
surance business is designed to protect. We 
know when an individual creates an estate 
he has in his mind the protection of those who 
are dependent upon him, and that he realizes 
that he owes to them a duty, and in the per¬ 
formance of the duty he is creating an estate 
in a way he thinks will make them better. He 
is performing his duty as an individual. If 
he is a member of a business firm and takes 
business insurance he is again benefiting in¬ 
dividuals. He may be at that particular time 
benefiting the firm, protecting its credit, mak¬ 
ing its standing better, but after all the firm 
is made up of individuals, his own family, his 

104 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 

partner’s family, and all of the individuals 
that are interested in that firm are the ones 
who are benefited. 

The firm itself cannot be protected in it¬ 
self, but the protection must extend to the 
individual. If insurance is taken for any 
other reason, that reason is a duty that is 
owed to some person, a benefit that must 
go to some individual. If it be an endow¬ 
ment policy that is payable to the insured 
himself, he has looked forward to his old age 
and sought to protect himself against the un¬ 
certainties of life, and at the same time pro¬ 
tect the individuals to whom he owes an obli¬ 
gation so they will not be called upon to use 
their means to take care of him. He has 
thought that in his old age he would like to 
have an independent life, that he would like 
to feel that he is not one of the 90% of people 
who are always dependent upon some person 
for a living. This kind of thinking has made 
the country better. If we could imagine the 
ideal situation when every person realized 
his full duty and performed it and carried 
life insurance for the protection of those de¬ 
pendent upon him and for his own protection 
in his old age, we might discontinue all of the 
alms houses of this country. We could discon¬ 
tinue probably one-half of the criminal insti¬ 
tutions. We could know that the standard 


105 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

of education in this country would be lifted up, 
that it would become ideal, and we could know 
the people of this country would be benefited 
as they never have been before. 

We know no one can raise children like 
the parents themselves can raise them. We 
know that charitable institutions can’t do it, 
but we do realize that life insurance in all of 
its benefits comes nearer to taking the place 
of parents or the ones who have been called 
to perform the duty than anything else, and 
in this one instance the benefactions of life 
insurance very greatly justify the existence 
of the institution. 

Life is like a play in which envy and 
hatred stand as a bar to all accomplishments, 
shutting out the enjoyment of life, charity, 
love, and progress. We can imagine such a 
play, the beginning of which is childhood, and 
this life is full of ambition and ideals, and we 
can see this life progress along until it comes 
to that point where plans are made for the 
future; plans which are built upon ideals that 
are high; plans that comprise the highest 
aims of life. And then we can see the tragedy 
occur which brings hatred and envy into the 
life and this hatred and envy stands for years 
and years as a complete bar to those other 
qualities of life that give happiness and pleas¬ 
ure. In the background we can see the guid- 

106 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


ing spirit of the individual pleading that he 
lay aside these thoughts of envy and hatred so 
that the spirit of love and progress may help 
him, and not until old age has softened his dis¬ 
position and broadened his vision upon the 
world does he cast aside these feelings which 
have caused him so much pain and trouble, 
and through the gateway thereby opened he 
sees Happiness come smiling through. It 
seems to me that the life insurance agent does 
indeed play the part of Happiness in this play 
of life. Not only can he come smiling through 
in old age but in middle age and in youth, and 
as he appears he does indeed spread the rays 
of sunshine and is true Happiness to the 
world. 

Our business is the most unselfish business 
in the world because it is not alone individual 
wealth that we are working for. We do not 
work and succeed because of our personal 
gain. It is true that that comes along as a 
result of our work, but we do not work alone 
for the dollar that we can make. The life 
insurance man, more than any other person, 
must love his work in order to succeed. He 
must realize that his labor is a labor of love, 
because all the time he is thinking of others. 
Great success depends upon the vision one has 
of the task at hand. It is necessary to know 
what one is building in order to arrive more 
surely at success. 


107 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


If we go through the biographies of people 
who have made good and who have made a 
creditable success, we find that they thought 
all the time of others, and not so much of self. 
Lincoln thought of others from his very youth 
to the time of his death. He was willing to 
forego any pleasure himself that others might 
have more. He thought of other people and 
other human beings, no worse off than himself, 
but whom he would like to see have more 
pleasures and comforts. And it is- the some¬ 
body else that is the object of life insurance, 
the somebody else that is dependent upon us, 
the somebody else that needs protection, the 
somebody else that is dependent upon the pros¬ 
pect, to whom he owes a duty and to whom he 
feels that he must perform that duty in a way 
that will be creditable to him. If we life in¬ 
surance men could entirely forget the com¬ 
mission, if we could entirely forget our own 
personal gain, and if we could throw ourselves 
into our work to do the most good and make 
the best record that we could make, there 
would be a great revolution in the life insur¬ 
ance business. Our production would not only 
be doubled but it would be quadrupled. Our 
very thought of the financial side of our busi¬ 
ness very often prevents us from getting the 
application. But invariably when we find a 
man who is a success in the life insurance 


108 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


SOMEBODY ELSE 
By Edgar A. Guest. 

Somebody wants a new bonnet to wear; 
Somebody wants a new dress; 

Somebody needs a new bow for her hair, 

And never the wanting grows less. 

Oh, this is the reason I labor each day 
And this is the joy of my task, 

That deep in the envelope holding my pay 
Is something that somebody asks. 

I could go begging for water and bread 
And travel the highways of ease, 

But somebody wants a roof over his head 
And stockings to cover his knees. 

I could go shirking the duties of life 
And laugh when necessity pleads, 

But rather I stand to the toil and the strife 
To furnish what somebody needs. 

Somebody wants what I’ve strength to supply, 
And somebody’s waiting for me 

To come home tonight with money to buy 
Her bread and her cake and her tea. 

And as I am strong so her laughter will ring, 
And as I am true she will smile; 

It’s the somebody else of the toiler or king 
That makes all the struggle worth while. 

Somebody needs all the courage I own, 

And somebody’s trust is in me; 

For never a man who can go it alone, 
Whatever his station may be. 

So I stand to my task and I stand to my care, 
And struggle to come to success, 

For the ribbons to tie up somebody’s hair, 

And my somebody’s pretty new dress. 

109 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

business, we find that he is one who has 
thought of somebody else instead of himself 
and his great aim has been to build for others 
and to take the results as his reward. Before 
him is ever fixed as his guide a bright and 
shining star—the star of human benefit. It 
leads him on to success. 

It has been said that every man is the 
architect of his own fortune, that he builds 
his own life, that in the beginning he is given 
certain natural abilities and with these he 
must succeed. We know he can develop his 
ambitions. We know he can inform himself 
as to the customs and advantages of life, and 
that it is in direct proportion with the way in 
which he does inform himself and conduct 
himself that he succeeds. We know the peo¬ 
ple who have risen to the greatest heights 
have been self made men, men who had very 
little with which to start. 

It is indeed a revelation to any person to 
see and study the great tapestries in the Vati¬ 
can at Rome. There they have hung for 
hundreds of years, the colors just as bright 
and in just as good condition today as 
they were when they were finished. And as 
one looks at them and knows the great Raphael 
made the drawings for them, and that he 
directed the weavers who made them, and 
when you know they are built up thread by 

110 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


thread, here one color and there another, here 
a golden thread drawn through to make the 
very finest kind of lines, and when you realize 
that the complete piece of work makes a pic¬ 
ture true in its details and as great as any 
that has ever been painted, you then realize 
just how great a piece of work it is. And as 
you stand there admiring these works of art 
you cannot help but realize that a life is built 
up just as these tapestries have been built, 
thread by thread, not all of them of gold, not 
all of them of value, not all bright colors, not 
all of them pleasant, but if the life has been 
well built, it makes the picture that is just as 
true and just as pleasing and just as valuable 
as that on which you gaze. And one cannot 
but realize no matter what the conditions, no 
matter what the circumstances, that if the in¬ 
dividual has the right grip on himself, he is 
the true architect of his own fate. If he has 
ambition to grow big he will overcome the 
obstacles. He will weave well. When the 
threads of gold are needed he will have them 
at hand. He will place them and he will 
weave them well, and he will be proud of his 
accomplishment. 

And in this connection we are reminded 
that life is made up of three stages. The first 
is youth, and in this stage we lean on our 
parents. They owe us a duty. They owe us 

111 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

protection and they owe us care and a living 
and a direction in the way we should go. In 
this stage of life, youth looks forward to man¬ 
hood and hopes for old age. He may not al¬ 
ways be discreet. He may not always act as 
the maturer person would, but always does 
he look forward with that longing for a time 
when he can accomplish something. From his 
own standpoint he is not a subject for life in¬ 
surance. He does at all times, however, de¬ 
mand the protection which life insurance af¬ 
fords, because we cannot give our child a 
chart of his years and set him on his journey. 
We cannot look into the cradle and tell what 
will come forth. The uncertainties of life 
make the duty great. Can there be any 
greater duty that the parent owes to a child 
than to have him fully protected so that in 
case of death of the parents before he reaches 
his majority, he will avoid the pitfalls of life, 
avoid being thrown in conditions with which 
he cannot cope? In this stage of life there is 
not so much duty on the individual child, but 
there is a great duty resting on the parents 
and it remains with the life insurance man 
to bring home to the parents a full realization 
of this duty. 

The next stage of life is the middle age, 
the productive period when the individual is 
making his own way, when he is building his 

112 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


own fortune, when he is forming his own life. 
In this stage of life he lives in the present. 
He is too likely to forget to provide for the 
future. He is busy with the daily cares of 
life and does not voluntarily look to his duty 
to those dependent upon him. And yet this is 
the age in which he should realize that it is 
the time for him to provide for those who are 
dependent upon him. He knows he is re¬ 
sponsible for one unit of society—his family. 
He knows he owes them a living, that it is his 
duty to see that his wife is provided for as 
long as he lives and that his children are pro¬ 
vided a living and an education, and a place 
in society. And he knows the uncertainties 
of life and if he should be taken off quickly 
without any provision for the support of his 
family, he would not have made a success in 
this world. It remains for the life insurance 
man to show to these individuals their duty 
and make them perform their duty. Can there 
be any greater feeling of satisfaction than 
that which comes in making some man in 
middle life provide for those for whom he has 
not made ample provision? Can there be any 
greater inspiration come to any man than 
that which comes when he realizes that he has 
provided for future generations so they can 
live better, that he is having a direct hand in 

113 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

making the world better? It is a big work. 
It is fine work. It is creditable success. 

And yet I think there is one thing more 
that is just as important as that and which to 
me would give a greater thrill than any of it, 
and that is to cause an individual in his mid¬ 
dle life to provide for his old age. You know 
a person either dies or grows old. There are 
just two alternatives. Life insurance meets 
both conditions. If he dies well protected 
with life insurance, his dependents are taken 
care of and do not become public charges. If 
he grows old, the circumstances have changed. 
If he provided along the line for the conting¬ 
ency of his death so that those dependent 
upon him would be cared for, that was a duty 
well performed. That same provision and 
foresight when he has grown old changes to 
the protection of himself. Old age looks back¬ 
ward. Maybe he has had ambitions which 
are not realized. No person ever quite real¬ 
izes all of his ambitions and when the in¬ 
dividual stands at old age, he knows that what 
he wished and hoped to be, he can never be. 
He knows he is just one step from the grave. 
But he can be a splendid addition to society if 
he is in such financial condition that he is not 
pitiful in his old age. It does not take great 
wealth to make happiness, but in old age it 
does take comfort. And if the old people do 


114 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


have the common comforts of life and if they 
do not have to labor for their very existence, 
the pitiful scenes are avoided. The old man 
who has had large experience is valuable for 
the direction and advice which he can give, 
and there is no more pleasing character in all 
the world than one who is happy in his old 
age. TRe greatest tragedy that Shakespeare 
ever wrote was King Lear and the climax 
came when in his extreme old age he was 
turned out in the storm, alone in the world. 
Not only was he without means of support, 
but he was without friends or relatives. All 
that is worth while in this world is a good 
life surrounded by friends. Ah yes, friends! 
No matter what the wealth is, if the friends 
are not there, nothing is worth while. In his 
wailings King Lear did not regret that he had 
not made good in a business way. He did not 
wail about the failure of his business ventures. 
But it was because he was alone and did not 
have the companionship of friends, that he 
had drifted beyond the point where there was 
any hand to care for him. 

In the first stage of life there is an excuse. 
We do not expect the child to provide his own 
protection. In the second stage of life there 

115 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

is no excuse. The man in middle life well 
knows his duty and should be made to per¬ 
form it. There is no excuse in the third 
stage of life, that of old age, if everybody has 
done his duty, and this includes the life insur¬ 
ance man. I think we may say the life insur¬ 
ance man is the guardian of old age, and if 
you have never got a thrill or an inspiration 
out of the life insurance business, you should 
do so if you have any red blood in your veins, 
when you stop to consider old age. If you 
have done your duty in this regard and if your 
work has been well performed, you will have 
looked past the busy business man and past 
the young man rising to fame and to success 
in business. You will have looked past all 
this to old age, and you will have tried to 
visualize these individuals as happy old men 
and women. And if you have done that you 
will have realized that these persons are 
happy in their old age and as they approach 
their end it will be like the sighting of land 
and the coming into port after a long, pleasant 
voyage. If you can see this picture in your 
business, you will see the hundreds and thous¬ 
ands of old men and women at the end of 
their voyage, crowd to the rail and strive to 

116 


CREDITABLE SUCCESS 


get the first glimpse of land and the glimpse 
of the Goddess of Liberty and Love, on that 
good old life insurance ship, which is being 
builded so strongly and so firmly by your 
hands and your work. 


117 


% 
















THE BEST METHOD 
OF ACQUAINTING THE PUBLIC 
WITH THE BENEFITS OF 
LIFE INSURANCE 























The Best Method of Acquainting the 
Public With the Benefits of 
Life Insurance 

Since the results of the influenza and the 
war poured into the laps of beneficiaries more 
than two and a half billion of dollars, it seems 
almost impossible that there can be any 
person in the United States in any locality 
who does not know and fully realize the bene¬ 
fits and advantages of life insurance, and it 
may be said that the population of the United 
States, as a whole, does know and understand 
and realize the great benefits and advantages 
of life insurance even to the point of knowing 
that it is a part of the very fabric of our na¬ 
tion. As an institution it may not be quite as 
intimately known as the banking business but 
it is not very far behind that institution in its 
popularity. It takes a long, long time to edu¬ 
cate thoroughly the people of the United States 
to any one proposition. 

Education may be accomplished by sys¬ 
tematic advertising that brings before the 
public the name and advantage of an article 
so that it will become thoroughly known to 
everyone. This kind of publicity costs a 
great deal of money but it remains with the 

121 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

article advertised whether or not the publicity 
endures. Through systematic advertising the 
name of an article can be firmly impressed 
upon the mind of every person, and yet if that 
article has no value, if it has no value to the 
individual, if it does not have advantage and 
benefits in its use, then the advertising falls 
flat and the effect of it will finally wear off and 
be entirely lost. But if the advertising, wheth¬ 
er or not it be done by systematic advertising 
of some kind, be backed up by real merit and 
that merit come forcibly before the American 
people, then the benefits will stick and the re¬ 
sults will be very satisfactory indeed. 

We have heard of a life insurance agency 
that impressed upon its members the benefits 
and advantages of life insurance and brought 
out the sales points applicable to the particu¬ 
lar time and situation during the influenza 
period. The incident may not be out of point 
here. This particular agency was a city 
agency and at the beginning of the great epi¬ 
demic of influenza people were dying all over 
the town. The general agent tried to im¬ 
press upon his agents the advisability of using 
the increased death rate in their canvasses. 
But all of his advice was without effect until 
he got a city map with a set of tacks and each 
day put a tack in the particular block at the 
location of the house where there had been a 


122 


ACQUAINTING THE PUBLIC WITH INSURANCE 

death. It was not many days before the map 
w r as covered, as the deaths occurred, and the 
entire map was dotted over with tacks repre¬ 
senting deaths. After a little while he made 
a talk to his agents and brought to their at¬ 
tention the number of tacks in the map, tell¬ 
ing them that had there been a fire at each of 
these houses in which there had been a death, 
the city fire department would have been 
there each time and would have spent a great 
deal of money in protecting the city and that 
the town would have been greatly stirred up 
and excited over the fact of so many fires and 
the destruction of so much valuable property. 
Yet there had been so many deaths in the 
town, one in almost every block, and the city 
authorities had done nothing, could do noth¬ 
ing to prevent it. He told them it was the 
duty of the life insurance man to show this 
picture to the public so that they might have 
the advantage of protecting themselves. It 
aroused the interest of the agents, they saw 
more clearly the advantages and the necessity 
of life insurance and their production in¬ 
creased very rapidly. 

We have had two forcible illustrations of 
the value and necessity of life insurance 
thrown on the screen for the entire public of 
the United States. One was the great epi¬ 
demic of influenza and the other was the 


123 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


claims resulting from the world war. Com¬ 
ing together as they did, the public was edu¬ 
cated to the value of life insurance more than 
ever could have been done in a half century of 
any other kind of publicity. The advantages 
and effect of life insurance were brought 
into almost every home in the United States 
and if not into every home then it surely 
came into the home of some neighbor or friend 
of every person in the United States. So it 
was more effective education than any other 
method that ever could be presented. And yet 
the people of the United States forget very 
quickly. In this great country where we have 
had plenty of elbow room; where we have no 
overcrowded districts; where there is an 
abundance of land for every person; where 
the great opportunities have presented them¬ 
selves one upon another, the American citizen 
very quickly forgets the advantages of some¬ 
thing that has occurred. The banking busi¬ 
ness is forced upon him because it is imprac¬ 
tical to carry his money around with him and 
do business on a cash basis. He must have a 
checking account for the convenience of his 
business. Yet this brings him no money. 
This is no investment for him unless it be a 
savings account and that is not practical for 
business purposes. During the war people of 
the South were mingled with the people of the 

124 


ACQUAINTING THE PUBLIC WITH INSURANCE 

North, while the far Westerners were brought 
into close association with those of the East. 
All of the people of all the states intermingled 
and exchanged ideas and methods. The scope 
of vision was greatly broadened. Out of the 
past five years have come so many conditions 
with which we were not acquainted and which 
we had never dreamed of before that life in¬ 
surance has become almost as much a neces¬ 
sity in the business man’s affairs as the bank. 

Heretofore we have been used to extra 
taxes and unusual conditions caused by war 
and otherwise, but these extra burdens have 
been lightly borne by the people of the United 
States and very quickly would they wear off 
and eliminate themselves. But when we took 
on the financing of the great world war to 
the extent of some twenty billions of dollars 
we took on a permanent condition of taxation 
which will remain for years. Along with this 
has come the increased prices of everything, 
including labor, to such an extent as we 
have never before dreamed of and these have 
made it absolutely necessary for the use of life 
insurance as a protection to the individual, 
as well as to his business. It does not stop 
with the business but it extends to the protec¬ 
tion and safeguarding of the individuals and 
business estates after the death of the person 
who has built it. This much has come out of 


125 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


the war and the epidemic of influenza and all 
of the conditions which we have had to deal 
with during the past five years. And now to 
say what are the best methods of acquainting 
the public with the benefits of life insurance 
is indeed a question which should be upper¬ 
most in the mind of every one connected with 
the life insurance business in the United 
States. It is not so important that the figures 
of volume and the percentages of our business 
be given as it is that the service side thereof 
and the human interest elements be given. 
The public is not interested in how much iron 
is mined, but in how good the watch spring 
is; not in how many tractors are made, but 
what value is a tractor. The public cares very 
little for how much business we have in force 
but it is interested in what this ten thousand 
dollar policy will do for the family. 

There are many methods which may be 
used effectively and successfully, but the one 
chief requisite of any method used is that it 
be sincere and honest and based on merit. It 
is not at all difficult to excite the curiosity of 
the American people through advertising. We 
have an example just recently of a great num¬ 
ber of companies and organizations being 
formed and operated, whose sole object was 
to sell to the public an ingredient to increase 
the number of miles secured by an automobile 


126 




ACQUAINTING THE PUBLIC WITH INSURANCE 

from a gallon of gasoline and all that they 
sold to the public was moth balls. Tests show 
that moth balls will not add a single mile to 
one gallon or to ten gallons of gasoline, but 
the instructions which went along with the 
article were very explicit as to the adjust¬ 
ment of the carburetor and the use of the 
material sold. These adjustments did bring 
increased mileage and therefore brought some 
kind of a reputation for the article that was 
sold, not that it had anything to do with it, 
but results were obtained. This is publicity 
without merit as a basis. There is no cause 
for any advertisement of life insurance which 
does not carry with it merit to the public. 

The war and conditions growing out of it 
for the past four or five years have created 
in the minds of the people of the United 
States, an admiration for big business and a 
belief in its efficiency. Life insurance is one 
of the big businesses of the country and the 
public need only be presented with the cor¬ 
rect view of it for them to give it the consid¬ 
eration they give to every big business. Now 
is the time to bring to their attention more 
forcibly, or rather to continue to bring to 
their minds, the good advantages and values 
of life insurance. This is the day of big busi¬ 
ness and broad ideas. 


127 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


When we think about this subject we think 
of a great many methods that can be used 
effectively for the educating of the people. 
First of all, we probably would think of the 
moving pictures as a means of educating the 
public. It is one of the great fields and will be 
effectively used in the future. So far it has 
been a failure for the most part because most 
of the pictures that have been made on life 
insurance have attempted to make it the 
whole story in the picture and therefore it 
was too dry and uninteresting. They might 
be interesting to life insurance men but not 
to the public, which is the object of our educa¬ 
tion. But where life insurance will play its 
part in the moving picture business is in the 
incidents and human interest stories which 
forcibly demonstrate it. 

When we consider the wide and effective 
circulation of Talmadge’s famous sermon on 
life insurance, the possible influence of the 
pulpit is very apparent. Yet it is surprising 
to us in the life insurance business to know 
how poorly informed are the ministers of our 
country on the value of life insurance. Up to 
a few years ago very few of them understood 
anything about life insurance that could be 
placed to their credit. But every minister 
who is informed on life insurance is always a 
warm friend of the institution. To present 

128 


ACQUAINTING THE PUBLIC WITH INSURANCE 

properly through literature, or otherwise, the 
objects and the great service of life insurance 
to the ministers of the United States, would 
be a very effective way of educating the pub¬ 
lic through them. The agents over the coun¬ 
try can and should do this. 

And then we think of the public schools 
as a means of advising the public of the 
value of life insurance. When we consider 
this subject we must look at it from two 
angles. One is education for the future so 
that we will reap permanent results and the 
other is to work for quick results at the pres¬ 
ent time. If either one is to be sacrificed I 
think it would be better to sacrifice present 
results and look to future results from our 
education. For years the different insurance 
organizations have thought about text books 
on life insurance in the common schools. 
Probably we should not expect the ready 
adoption of an entire text book on life insur¬ 
ance in our schools but there are several sub¬ 
jects taught to the children in public schools 
in which the subject of life insurance should 
be treated just the same as the railroads, the 
banks, and, in fact, the Government of our 
country. Probably very much greater results 
could be obtained by looking at the question 
of a text book the same way we should look at 
the moving pictures, and try to get the little 

129 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

scenes and historical facts of our business 
interwoven in the other text books now in use. 
Much good has come from the lectures on in¬ 
surance in the high schools and yet too many 
times have they been poorly presented because 
of the selfishness of an agent to advertise 
himself when, in fact, he was a poor speaker 
and a poor instructor. In the college it is a 
different proposition. The seed is well sown. 
Young men are attracted to the profession of 
salesmanship and are demanding education 
in that profession and the results of the last 
few years in the establishing of insurance 
courses in many of the colleges and univers¬ 
ities of the country are very gratifying re¬ 
sults of the work of the different insurance 
organizations. This is one very effective way 
of teaching to the people the value of life in¬ 
surance. 

I know of no reason why the Post Office 
Department of our Government should not 
sanction the use of a stamp on letters, adver¬ 
tising life insurance generally, the same as 
fairs or other events are advertised. If the 
life insurance companies and other institu¬ 
tions could stamp on their mail “Is your life 
insured?" or some other effective wording, it 
would be the means of bringing more con¬ 
tinually to the eye of the public the great 
business of life insurance. 


130 


ACQUAINTING THE PUBLIC WITH INSURANCE 

The newspapers, magazines and other 
periodicals of our country are eager to publish 
well prepared articles. There is no reason 
why the stories of life insurance service, the 
human interest stories which are of value and 
all those things which are incident to the life 
insurance business, could not be from time to 
time properly prepared and presented to the 
press. If there was some united effort through 
some organization for the collection of stories 
and incidents of life insurance, for publica¬ 
tion, in my opinion it would be a very effective 
way of presenting our institution to the public. 

Of course, we cannot forget the effective¬ 
ness of paid advertising in newspapers, mag¬ 
azines and in our own trade journals. All 
have done a very great deal to extend the in¬ 
stitution of life insurance, but up to about 
five years ago the copy which appeared in life 
insurance advertisements was the poorest 
kind of advertising that was paid for in the 
entire United States. It seemed to carry no 
object, either educational, inspirational or 
otherwise. It was carried more as a donation 
to the paper than for any other reason. We 
are very proud today that this condition is 
very rapidly disappearing and the copy has 
taken on a very different aspect. Today in the 
life insurance advertisements the public is 
told of the great service of insurance, told of 

131 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

the advantages of the company. They are 
told of the methods of operation of the com¬ 
panies and of their investments, and, of 
course, this character of advertising which is 
sincere and has the true ring to it, does a 
world of good in giving to the public the kind 
of information about life insurance com¬ 
panies and the institutions of life insurance 
which they should have. There is no reason 
why the public press, both in the news that is 
printed and in the advertisements which are 
carried, should not give the same kind of con¬ 
sideration and publicity to life insurance as 
they do to the banking business or the railroad 
business. Every day these institutions are 
interwoven with the public transactions of 
the business of the world and life insurance 
deserves just as prominent a position. 

We owe much to the life insurance jour¬ 
nals. Today they are clean, high class and 
reputable. They collect and publish the news 
and facts of our business and from them is 
published much material that is of great bene¬ 
fit. No trade journals in any business are 
more beneficial. 

I am firmly of the opinion that it would 
be very beneficial to the life insurance busi¬ 
ness if the companies could unite on a method 
of cooperative advertising for the education 
of the public. The cost of this advertising 

132 


ACQUAINTING THE PUBLIC WITH INSURANCE 

could be borne by the companies by each set¬ 
ting aside and paying to a general fund, a 
.very small sum, and advertisements of the 
benefits of legal reserve life insurance and 
not of any particular company, could be car¬ 
ried in all of the important newspapers and 
periodicals of the country every day in the 
year. I think we would be very much sur¬ 
prised at the low cost of cooperative advertis¬ 
ing of this character and it would be real 
advertising which would produce results for 
all. And even though there would be a few 
companies who would not cooperate in this re¬ 
gard, the benefit would be so great that they 
could be forgotten until they came to the 
realization of the benefit of their cooperation. 
This method of advertising need not interfere 
with any individual company advertising 
which it might desire to do in addition there¬ 
to, but it would take the place very largely of 
our newspaper advertising and it surely 
would make it much easier for life insurance 
salesmen to operate. Many hours of selling 
expense would be saved and the public and 
especially the future generations would be 
educated to the value of life insurance service. 
Advertising done during Thrift Week was an 
example. Recent advertisements of life insur¬ 
ance run by banks are an example. In my 


133 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

opinion this is a subject which the insurance 
organizations might well and profitably con¬ 
sider. 

These are some of the methods by which 
the public could easily and well be educated 
to the value of life insurance and yet none 
of these are the best and most effective way 
of acquainting the public with the value of 
our institution. As far back as I can remem¬ 
ber I was taught one of the sayings of Benja¬ 
min Franklin and that is, “If you would have 
your business done, go; if not, send.” There 
are very few weeks, or even days, in my life, 
that this saying has not been brought forcibly 
to my mind as a very true rule to follow in 
business. If the life insurance companies 
of this country want the public acquainted 
with the value of what they have to offer, 
they are the ones to disseminate this informa¬ 
tion and it will be their job to do their own 
work, and if they do it themselves it will be 
done effectively. If they depend upon other 
people and other agencies to do their adver¬ 
tising and carry their message, it will con¬ 
tinue to scatter just like it has in the past. 
There is no reason why every life insurance 
company in the country should not be well 
and favorably known in every territory in 
which it is doing business. The extent to 
which it is known would, of course, depend 

134 


ACQUAINTING THE PUBLIC WITH INSURANCE 

upon its organization in the community, but 
as it progresses and grows there is no reason 
why the public should not know of this insti¬ 
tution. If a live agent has a territory com¬ 
prised of one county, it will not be very long 
until every person in that county is acquainted 
with his company and his service. I say this 
is true if he is a live agent. If he is looking 
only for the dollars that he can get today and 
has no idea of the future and does not have the 
proper vision of the life insurance business, 
then they may know 7 very little about his 
business. But in the true condition of af¬ 
fairs every person ought to know of that 
agency. 

From what statistics I have gathered 
there are about a quarter of a million of life 
insurance men in the United States, men who 
make their living by seeing people and writ¬ 
ing life insurance. There are about forty 
million ordinary policies in force. The popula¬ 
tion of the United States is something over one 
hundred million. Then there must be policies 
on about one-third of the entire population of 
the United States, not making any allowances 
for the duplication of policies in different 
companies and even in the same company. 
Agents and policyholders are friends, or 
should be. One of the objects of every life 
insurance company should be to create a good 

135 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


will in its favor because good will means 
more to the life insurance company than any¬ 
thing else that it has. The company has 
complete control over the character of its in¬ 
vestments and can from time to time change 
and modify its investments for the benefit of 
the company. It has complete control over 
the character of policies which it issues. It 
has complete control over the territory which 
it will enter and yet it takes something more 
than all that to make a life insurance com¬ 
pany and the greatest of all the other things 
is good will. Good will can only come from a 
good name and a good character. Business 
may be technically transacted on proper meth¬ 
ods and yet done in such a way that it does 
not create good will. 

A department store tries always to make 
its store a place which the people know and to 
which they like to come, whether to trade 
there or not. They try to make it easy for a 
person to do business in the store. They spend 
money to please patrons and make friends. 
They work entirely upon the theory that the 
customer is always right. If there is any 
question to be decided the doubt is always re¬ 
solved in favor of the customer. That is busi¬ 
ness. The live banks of our country try to 
make it just as easy and simple as possible 
for every person, even a child, to transact 


136 


ACQUAINTING THE PUBLIC WITH INSURANCE 

business in the bank. All of this creates a 
good will. The life insurance companies of 
the country today have simplified their 
methods until there is no institution in all 
the world which has such plain, simple and 
effective business methods as does the life 
insurance business and yet the public is not 
properly acquainted with that fact. We have 
not yet paid enough attention to good will as 
an asset. It is said that the good will of 
Wool worth’s ten cent stores is valued at $50,- 
000,000. Many times have we known of 
businesses changing hands and being liqui¬ 
dated, whose good will was worth more than 
their stock in trade. To establish a reputa¬ 
tion and a good will, a company must have a 
reputation for fairness, for honesty, for 
promptness in its dealings and for giving 
value received. It is easy to establish all of 
these things in a life insurance company be¬ 
cause it is the natural way for it to do busi¬ 
ness. A little bit of diplomacy will establish 
the reputation of a life insurance company for 
fairness. And of course it must be prompt in 
the transactions of its business or there will 
be no good will. Delays are very obnoxious 
to the public and especially in life insurance 
transactions. But if the company makes its 
policyholders know that it gives a full measure 
at all times and that it gives service to policy- 


137 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

holders, that it is its aim to put back in some 
way in some service, or improvement, or 
benefaction, just a little bit more than it 
takes, that it has an honest desire to render 
to its fellow men a just return, to give to its 
policyholders a bit more than they expected, 
then the policyholders will reward its faith 
with a full measure of patronage. 

As I said before, there are a quarter of a 
million of life insurance agents in the United 
States and there is in force one policy on 
about every third person. Then if the com¬ 
panies had as their object a requirement of 
every agent that he become thoroughly and 
well acquainted with his policyholders, and 
that during each year it was his duty to 
acquaint these policyholders as well as the 
public with the value of life insurance and 
especially with the service rendered by his 
own company, it would not be long until every 
person in the United States would be well 
acquainted with the necessity and value of 
life insurance. It would be easy to inform the 
public that life insurance companies have no 
red tape, that death claims are paid promptly, 
in fact, many times before the burial of the 
insured, that the service of life insurance, ex¬ 
tending as it does to the family of the insured, 
is the most valuable service in the world; that 
the investments of life insurance do more de- 


138 


ACQUAINTING THE PUBLIC WITH INSURANCE 

veloping of American industries than any 
other money. What a world of facts we have 
to give to our fellow-man, in all of which he 
and his family are interested. 

During the past few years many com¬ 
panies in the country have had one month 
each year which is set aside as Policyholders’ 
Month. The object of these months have dif¬ 
fered with the different companies. With 
some of them the sole purpose is to secure more 
new business, but I believe that is the wrong 
object for Policyholders’ Month. We have 
had a Policyholders’ Month for ten years and 
its primary object has been to shake hands 
with old policyholders, renew our acquaint¬ 
ance and friendship and ask them if they 
know of any way by which we can improve 
our service to policyholders. Of course, see¬ 
ing people always produces new business and 
the new business written on old policyholders 
and their friends during Policyholders’ 
Month, with its object as above stated, has 
been most satisfactory to us and at the same 
time every policyholder looks forward to the 
month of December as Policyholders’ Month 
and expects at that time to shake hands with 
one of our agents. He is told in our Policy- 
holders 7 Bulletin that it is required of our 
agents that during the month of December 
they shake hands with every policyholder of 

189 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

the company, not only with the policyholder 
himself, but get well acquainted with the fam¬ 
ily of the policyholder. The requirement is 
that our agent visit the policyholder at his 
home. I know of no reason why an agency 
should ever get so large but that the policy¬ 
holders can be properly divided up so that 
some agent of the company will see the policy 
holder in his home during Policy-holders' 
Month and shake hands with him and his fam¬ 
ily and thereby increase the good will of the 
company and extend their education on the 
value of life insurance. It is in this direct 
way that most of the education must be given. 

To accomplish the true and lasting results 
our Home Offices must be the fountain heads 
for the proper education. We must devise the 
means and methods of acquainting the policy¬ 
holders and the public with our institution. 
As we see it we must make them see it. As 
we believe and have faith in it we must make 
them believe and have faith. We must have 
the patience to teach well, and as we do, we 
shall see results heap themselves upon us as 
reward for our work. As we have elevated 
and improved our agency force, just so should 
we by our own efforts give the public the true 
education on our business. 

Too many agents in this country up to the 
present time, have worked on the theory that 

140 


ACQUAINTING THE PUBLIC WITH INSURANCE 

their duty ceased when they had delivered the 
policy to the insured. This is the wrong theory 
because the service of the life insurance com¬ 
pany is just the beginning, and from that day 
until the death of the insured a very solemn 
obligation is a part of the contract of both the 
company and the agent to that policyholder, 
and it does not end then, but it carries on 
until after the settlement and even to the 
method of settlement and to the best advice 
which the agent and company can give for 
the use, investment and conservation of the 
proceeds of the policy. Agents are just be¬ 
ginning to realize that it is a very effective 
part of their canvass to talk about the settle¬ 
ment and the investment of the proceeds of 
the policy after the death of the insured. 
Every company today provides different 
options of settlements. All of them have the 
income settlements and the trust fund agree¬ 
ments and it is just as much the duty of the 
agent to properly advise the beneficiary as to 
the method of settlement best suited to her 
needs, as it is for him to secure the applica¬ 
tion for the policy itself. In this way the 
good will of the company is created and ex¬ 
tended. Good advice given to the members 
of the family with whom the agent has be¬ 
come well acquainted, is very deeply appre¬ 
ciated and friendship always creates a very 


141 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

great part in the transaction of our business. 
If he has given good advice which has resulted 
well to the beneficiary and to the family, then 
they have had their education on life insur¬ 
ance as well as on his particular company. 

The public is interested in the service that 
life insurance companies give. They are in¬ 
terested in its betterment. They are willing 
to cooperate for the betterment of our service. 
We demonstrated that fact two years ago in 
our Policyholders’ Bulletin. At that time we 
had 25,000 policyholders. We issued a Bulle¬ 
tin on life insurance service and our own 
service in particular, which was sent to every 
policyholder of the company. To test this 
very question, we inserted a loose blank in 
each Bulletin asking the policyholder to make 
suggestions whereby life insurance service 
could be bettered. We received hundreds of 
replies on which the policyholders themselves 
paid the postage, making a great many sug¬ 
gestions of things that a life insurance com¬ 
pany could do which would better its service 
and benefit the policyholder and beneficiary. 
And let me say here that these suggestions 
covered many, many very excellent features, 
most of which have been adopted by life insur¬ 
ance companies in the last few years with 
which the public probably was not very well 
acquainted. A very great many of them re- 


142 


ACQUAINTING THE PUBLIC WITH INSURANCE 

ferred to options of settlement by the bene¬ 
ficiary and to the protection and investment 
of the insurance estate. But this test of ours 
showed to us conclusively that the policy¬ 
holders are interested further than the mere 
payment of their premiums and the receipt 
of the proceeds of their policies, and that they 
are interested in the service that the com¬ 
panies can give and interested in the institu¬ 
tion of life insurance. 

The companies have during the past few 
years eliminated the crooked agent from the 
business. He has been forced to seek other 
fields for his ventures. This in itself has 
done more for the betterment of life insur¬ 
ance than any other one thing. It has ele¬ 
vated the sales force to a much higher plane 
and has given it a standing throughout the 
country which is on a par with any other pro¬ 
fession today. And be it said to the everlast¬ 
ing credit of the life insurance companies that 
all this was accomplished voluntarily and not 
by requirements of any law. The institutions 
cleansed themselves of these parasites which 
had threatened to destroy the good will of the 
institutions themselves. If we must do our 
business through agents, each agent is the 
company in his particular locality. His rep¬ 
utation and practices make the reputation of 
the company. Therefore the selection of high 

143 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

grade agents should be our first consideration. 
To them is due 75% of the good will which our 
companies must have in order to succeed. 

Today there is one other feature of sales¬ 
manship which is also being handled by the 
companies themselves which is making for 
the betterment of life insurance in general, 
and that is the elimination of unfair compe¬ 
tition. Sales today are made upon merit. 
The twister is practically gone from the life 
insurance business and competition is rapidly 
changing to cooperation, when everybody will 
be benefited instead of injured by a sale. 

In the last analysis we find that there are 
at most only a very few people who are thrifty 
and saving. No matter how well known is the 
institution of life insurance, nor how well 
educated the public be upon its value, that 
education of itself would not sell our business. 
We find even here in the United States where 
prosperity has been the rule, that 53 out of 
every 100 persons at age 65 are dependent 
upon someone for support, that only 6 out of 
every 100 are self-supporting and only 5 are 
well off. We are proud of the fact that the 
people in this country are better educated 
and better informed than in the average 
country and yet even though they must real¬ 
ize their duty to themselves and to their 
loved ones, that realization does not cause 


144 


ACQUAINTING THE PUBLIC WITH INSURANCE 

them to act. But we do know today that 
there are fewer people than there used to be 
who hide their money in some secluded spot 
instead of putting it in the banks. This is 
due to education and confidence. Today the 
people generally have confidence in banking 
institutions and deposit their money with 
them and we cannot help but believe that as 
the public becomes more generally educated 
and informed on the value of life insurance 
and especially upon the great and valuable 
service which the life insurance companies 
render, that there will be less dependence and 
that these averages which we are forced to 
admit do exist today, will be lowered. And 
we believe that the service of life insurance 
will show the way to independence and self- 
respect to more people as the years go by. 
And while we know that even a thorough edu¬ 
cation would not make people voluntarily buy 
life insurance any more than the establish¬ 
ment of churches will make people become re¬ 
ligious, we know that the life insurance 
agent will always have his position and that 
business must come through his profession. 
Yet we believe that through the concerted ef¬ 
forts of the life insurance companies, the 
people can be told of the advantages of life 
insurance and of the great service and bene- 


145 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


faction of life insurance so that our business 
will more quickly come into its own as the 
biggest and best business on the face of the 
earth. 


146 








TODAY'S METHODS IN BUSINESS 




Today's Methods in Business 

Centuries ago the Venetians were known 
as the greatest traders in the world. It was 
the ambition of Venice to be the ruler of the 
world and she aimed to achieve that position 
by ruling it through trade and commerce. 
This condition had been brought about by 
the fact that the individual Venetians had 
long been traders from necessity. Their city 
is built in the ocean; the houses have stone 
foundations but there are no streets, only 
canals on which all of the traffic moves. Con¬ 
sequently, this city had surrounding it very 
little to support it and the inhabitants must 
of necessity go forth to sell, trade and barter 
and make their living in that way. It was 
not a city that was easily accessible, the pass¬ 
way was only by boat and the old rule held 
good that “necessity is the mother of inven¬ 
tion." Out of necessity these people became 
traders—individual traders. They went forth 
into other localities carrying packs and sell¬ 
ing as best they could. If they did not find 
trade in one place they kept on going until 
they did find trade. 

It was not a question of building up a 
trade as we know it today which could be 


151 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


depended upon from month to month, but 
it was a question of the individual sale. 
Maybe they would see the customer again 
during their lifetime and maybe not. It was 
a sale on the first interview and go on to find 
a new customer. Or else they took their goods 
upon the Rialto and displayed them in the 
best way they could and it was a question 
then of talking the individual into buying as 
against every other salesman who had his 
goods there trying to make his sale. The in¬ 
dividual merchant as he might be termed did 
not build up a permanent trade but it was 
more catch-as-catch-can. They developed 
goods of great color; they added everything 
that would help to sell but it still remained 
the individual sale and not the question of 
building up a good will. So from necessity 
in making a living in this way the Venetians 
were developed to be the greatest traders in 
the world, and the individuals having been 
developed in this way the government of the 
city decided they would send forth ships to 
do as their individual traders were doing and 
they would capture the commerce of the world 
and in that way be the mistress of the world. 
They tried it. This was a new venture to 
them, but it was successful. They built up 
trade with all the countries of that day that 
extended far and wide over all the civilized 


152 


today's methods in business 

world, but during all that time the thing that 
made advances was governed by just one 
principle, and that is the law of supply and 
demand. If there was a demand for a certain 
goods at a certain place in the world then there 
was the market and things went pretty much 
in a groove. There was no attempt to create 
a market and there was no attempt to make 
articles that would create a demand. It was 
selling where people wanted the goods. 

In our own country the first traders that 
came to this country were the fur traders. 
They went into the wilds of x4merica and 
traded things for fur. At first the articles 
they traded were articles of necessity, articles 
of food and clothing, and later they included 
trinkets and luxuries. But the point I am 
trying to make is that the trading of neces¬ 
sities was governed by the law of supply and 
demand. The fur traders did not attempt to 
create a market for their goods. They took 
such things to trade which were articles of 
necessity or which would appeal to the fancy 
of the individual. Later on many an individ¬ 
ual trapper or Indian traded all of his pos¬ 
sessions for a bottle of whiskey, but during 
the early period the thing that prompted the 
sale and trade was necessity for necessity. 

This condition continued in America for 
a long time until the institutions were well 

153 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


enough established to claim a foothold and 
become permanent businesses and then they 
began to send out salesmen to sell their art¬ 
icles and it was only a step from that to the 
creation of a desire for articles. The law of 
supply and demand is more nature’s law than 
it is man’s. It continues to exist but is sup¬ 
ported by the art of salesmanship that invents 
an article and then creates a demand for that 
article. This made trade for the United 
States and from that time the United States 
began to grow and expand and to become a 
real nation. Today no one waits for a de¬ 
mand. If a firm waited for a demand for 
their goods they could never start in business. 
They would never build up any kind of a 
trade. If a flour mill company should estab¬ 
lish the best mill in the world, either in the 
heart of the grain district or in the heart of 
a large city, and just simply wait for trade 
their warehouses would remain full and no 
sales would be made, and yet flour is an article 
of necessity. We have seen fortunes made by 
advertising which creates a demand whether 
it be from necessity or curiosity or some 
other desire, but nevertheless creates the de¬ 
mand for the article that makes the institution 
a success. We have seen a sales force prop¬ 
erly educated put on the market some article 


154 


today's methods in business 

entirely unknown and yet it was sold to the 
public in a way that made the institution 
rich and great. 

We in the life insurance business know 
that life insurance is just as much a neces¬ 
sity as is a farm or any other form of in¬ 
vestment. But we also know we have to 
create the demand and desire for it. Our 
market is in every American home but we 
must create the desire and make the sale. We 
are not pioneers as were the fur traders but 
we are still dealing with human beings who 
are prone to shirk their gravest duties. 

For many years salesmanship in this 
country was the mere taking of an order for 
the article to be delivered, for which a cer¬ 
tain sum of money was to be paid and that was 
all there was to the sale. There was no look¬ 
ing to the future; there was no attempt to 
build for a permanent connection. But to¬ 
day every sale that is made by any first class 
institution looks more to the future than it 
does to that particular sale. It has not been 
so many years ago that John Wanamaker 
decided that the method of selling clothing 
was all wrong; that there was no need or any 
reason why he should maintain salesmen on 
the sidewalks in front of his store to accost 
people to step inside and look at his clothing. It 
was his idea that the people should be left 


155 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

free to select what they wanted, that if they 
decided they wanted an article they would 
come to his store and select it. So he decided 
that there would be no soliciting of trade at 
his store, that on the contrary people were 
welcome to come whether they bought or not. 
They would be made to feel at home and re¬ 
ceive courteous treatment, and that method 
rapidly took the place of the old method of 
soliciting trade in front of every clothing store 
in the country. 

It may be said that this was the be¬ 
ginning, or close to the beginning, of the 
time when institutions began to build up 
good will. Today we only have to look at our 
big institutions and, yes, to our small institu¬ 
tions too, to see that the good will of these in¬ 
stitutions is worth more than their tangible 
assets. Courts have valued good will at ten 
years’ profit of a business. The point I am 
trying to make to you is that the old methods 
of salesmanship extending back into the cen¬ 
turies were crude and that there has been 
progress in salesmanship, that there has been 
progress in methods, that the old ideas and 
old theories used only a little while ago are 
not applicable today to the modern up-to-date 
business. It was necessary for the Venetian 
in his day to out-talk his opponent in making 
his sale, it was necessary perhaps that he 

156 


TODAY'S methods in business 

show goods of greater color. He had little re¬ 
gard for facts and his only object was to make 
the sale and get the money. It is here we 
found developed the true character of Shylock 
in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. The 
very same rules of salesmanship were true in 
the early days of this country of ours but it 
was not long before they began to sell on merit 
and on the reputation of the firm, and it was 
only a little step from that until the local 
merchant began to trade only with one whole¬ 
sale house and then he learned to know the 
good will of the institution. He soon learned 
to know whether their word was good, he 
learned their methods. In other words he be¬ 
came acquainted with their goods and their 
methods. 

We may inquire what has caused this 
change even back to the days of the Vene¬ 
tians and the answer comes to us that no 
matter how we view the subject from any 
source that it is a matter of education. The 
countries have grown and developed; the in¬ 
dividual has through his own efforts or 
through the efforts of some firm educated him¬ 
self on theories and methods of doing busi¬ 
ness. At first this education took the form of 
individual experience prompted by good in¬ 
tentions, and it was then said that a man's 
education was in the school of experience. 


157 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

That has always been one school that a person 
who has accomplished anything has been com¬ 
pelled to attend. There is no way of getting 
through life and avoiding this school of ex¬ 
perience. It is a hard course to take and the 
teachers are very strict and the price paid is 
very high. Especially is this so today. In 
the early days if a firm had connected with it 
a man who had gained by his experience and 
had gone forward to success that institution 
stood out as being a great institution. But 
perhaps it had only one or two men who had 
these ideas of progress and salesmen who had 
looked at the system of salesmanship in a way 
that made it progress. It was not a matter 
of regulation by the institution itself but was 
more of a voluntary action on the part of the 
individual. 

Later on these principles became a part 
of the firm’s policy and the different institu¬ 
tions had certain standards and requirements 
for their salesmen, and it is not very many 
years ago that we saw go into practice and in¬ 
to effect certain standards by which all 
members of a firm’s force of a particular 
institution must be measured, they must 
have certain requirements, they must have 
certain rules. They must sell the products 
of that firm on their merits. The insti¬ 
tution realized that its officers and its Board 


158 


today's methods in business 


of Directors could not go into the field and 
meet its customers face to face. The men 
conducting an individual business can do that 
but no institution of any magnitude can make 
its sales personally. Consequently, it must of 
necessity delegate its sales to its representa¬ 
tives and as the institutions looked at this 
great selling development of the United States 
they began to realize that every one of those 
representatives went forth from the office 
carrying their good name and good will along 
with the articles they had to sell. They were 
sending them out in a particular territory to 
build up that particular group of the com¬ 
pany's business, and then they realized that 
the salesman, that individual, was carrying 
their good name and good will when he 
reached his territory and proceeded to do 
business, and that the salesmen Were Really 
the Institution Itself in that Locality. 
Then they realized he ought to be a man in 
whom they could put just as much trust and 
just as much dependence as one of their own 
officers. Hence the grade of salesmen was 
raised. They were no longer satisfied with 
the man of questionable character and repu¬ 
tation but they sent forth a man who was 
really a sample of the institution itself and 
proceeded to build up the best business they 
could build and the best good will that the firm 


159 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

could maintain. Then they began to educate 
and train their salesmen and train them not 
only how to make the individual sale but how 
to look to the future and build up good will; 
to build broadly and effectively; to educate 
them in every way that was possible for the 
benefit of the firm. 

This is just a glimpse of the development 
of the history of salesmanship in the country 
and the reason I am telling it to you is because 
salesmanship has had just as much develop¬ 
ment as any particular business. Indeed it is 
salesmanship itself that has made the progress 
in the different institutions. Salesmanship 
has been the very moving spirit, the motive 
power, in the institutions reaching the point 
of development that they occupy today. Sales¬ 
manship has made the business instead of the 
business making the salesmanship. 

The life insurance companies have not 
been without progress in training and edu¬ 
cating. For many years they have been 
training and educating their individual sales¬ 
men. It became with them almost a matter 
of necessity just like the Venetians trained 
themselves. Now the big broad object of life 
insurance for every company and for every 
life insurance agent is to train the Whole 
Force as a Force. It is not enough that one 
agent or one agency be good but the whole 


160 


today's methods in business 

army must be fit to win. The idea is that the 
cause must win and it cannot do so without 
wholesale training. By educating the whole 
force as a force the strong men help the 
weaker ones. And after all are we not our 
brother's keeper? 

If our whole force is trained as a force 
and if they are the true loyal soldiers they 
ought to be so that they obey orders, yes, if 
you please, if they anticipate orders and put 
them into execution in the right way then in¬ 
stead of their quota being a task it will be a 
mere duty which will be doubled during the 
year. There comes a time in the progress of 
every institution when it passes from a local 
institution to a broader or a wholesale insti¬ 
tution and then by necessity its methods must 
change. So long as two individuals meet each 
other they can transact their business in a 
satisfactory manner. They can be warm 
personal friends while they are doing so. But 
if they are separated by system or distance 
then their business transactions must of 
necessity be carried on in a different manner 
and then it is that business must be delegated. 
Instead of the individual meeting the individ¬ 
ual an agent must be employed by one or both 
parties. So long as the individuals transact 
their own business they can make their own 
rules but when agents are employed they must 

161 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

be instructed and told what to do. They must 
be made to see through the master’s eye, they 
must know his plans, his policies as well as 
his goods. That is the common sense reason 
for the education of salesmen. 

I say to you that the progress of the times 
has not made necessary the training and edu¬ 
cating of salesmen but the educating and 
training of salesmen has made the progress 
of our big institutions and especially so with 
life insurance. There is a continual progress 
today due to the broadened ideas of life insur¬ 
ance salesmen just as much as to the broad¬ 
ened ideas of company policy. It is true that 
the big principles and foundation rules stay 
the same but the methods of application 
change from year to year. The general rules 
of law are the same today as when Blackstone 
lived because they are the rules of right and 
wrong between man and man, but the appli¬ 
cation of the rules is much different than in 
his time. The human anatomy is just the 
same today as it was two thousand years ago 
but the practice of medicine is much different. 
The whole world progresses as people ex¬ 
change ideas. 

Poor old Peter the Hermit knew not what 
he was doing when he organized his Crusade, 
when he gathered together thousands of peo¬ 
ple that made the pilgrimage to the Holy 

162 


TODAY’S methods in business 

Land. He knew his people were poor and 
that only a small percentage would sur¬ 
vive to return, yet he made his Crusade 
and it was thought to be a failure. But out 
of it ideas were brought back to the localities 
of the various individuals that were the begin¬ 
ning of progress of the world, broader than 
had ever been seen before. This was due to 
the exchange of ideas. These poor people, 
unable to give material things in the world, 
had got impressions along the way and 
brought back ideas which put into execution 
made progress of the world. Just so people 
get ideas from somebody else and think they 
are good and pass them along. The world 
war made an exchange of ideas that never has 
been before, good ideas and bad ideas, but 
out of it all will come much progress to the 
entire world. If an individual lives alone he 
is counted as a miser and he is looked upon 
almost as a wild man. If a town lives alone 
it stagnates. Two years ago I saw a town in 
Southern France where they still publish 
the laws by means of a town crier. He goes 
around from corner to corner with a drum 
and after making the usual noise he reads the 
village ordinance that has been passed, or a 
law that has been put into effect by the coun¬ 
cil. That method was used two thousand 


163 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

years ago. That little village would profit by 
a little exchange of ideas with other persons. 

It is now necessary for a life insurance 
company to train its representatives as a 
force. It is just as necessary that managers 
train their agents as a force to be known as 
the Jones force or the Brown force, for today 
it takes united action to win. We. could very 
well adopt the motto “United we stand, divid¬ 
ed we fall.” We would today have little or 
no gasoline if we had never had the Standard 
Oil Company. We would not have the wonder¬ 
ful steel buildings and construction work in 
this country if we had never had the United 
States Steel Corporation. We would not to¬ 
day have the insurance companies as large 
as they are if we had not had the various 
agency organizations. And I mean by all this 
that it is necessary to have organized forces 
to carry on a business of any magnitude to¬ 
day. The American people demand that busi¬ 
ness go fast. They demand that they be giv¬ 
en quick service. They are not satisfied with 
the common sense way in which business is 
transacted in many other countries. The 
European people would be content to go along 
with a service that is one quarter as fast as 
ours, yet Americans make time the essence 
of efficiency. 


164 


today’s methods in business 

To be sure it is always the individual prob¬ 
lem to be solved, but to solve those problems 
for a life insurance agent rather than to write 
applications for him is what permanently 
builds the structure. To teach the man how to 
do a thing rather than continually to do it for 
him is what gives permanent results. I do not 
mean by this that our managers should not 
spend time with their local agents because 
they should teach their whole force as a force. 
In the first place they should show their dis¬ 
trict manager how to train his men and make 
it a part of his duty that he does train each 
man that he has. The manager should see 
to it by tests at various times that training 
has been given and that every person working 
directly with the manager’s office has had his 
training until he is amply able to go by him¬ 
self and then he should be checked up often 
enough for the manager to know that he is in 
no way falling down. There is no way a man¬ 
ager can know the efficiency of those upon 
whom he is depending for production except 
by getting with them and knowing their prob¬ 
lems and knowing that they are able to exe¬ 
cute them, and if they are not solving them 
in the most efficient way then it is his duty 
to show them the way and make them just as 
efficient as possible. These are the ways to 
make an efficient agency force and by a few 

165 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

requirements they can be made a force that 
will move everything in front of them. 

There are a few things that are necessary 
that the manager teach to those who work 
directly with his office and by these I refer to 
the district manager, the general agents and 
the outlying agents who work directly with 
the manager's office. These same principles 
apply to the district manager who has agents 
under him. 

The first thing that is necessary to teach 
to every person who has a contract is a broad¬ 
er vision of his task. If a man is going to 
grow and progress as a district manager or as 
a general agent, or even as an agent, he must 
see an agency instead of an application. He 
must be able to vision hundreds of policy¬ 
holders instead of one individual to whom he 
is delivering a policy. He must be able to see 
hundreds of homes instead of just his own 
board bill. He must be able to vision an estate 
which is the protection of a home instead of 
a $1,000 policy. It is necessary that he be 
able to vision three generations instead of 
one policy year. It has been said that with¬ 
out vision people perish, and I know of no 
business to which that applies with more force 
than the life insurance business. An agency 
without a vision is indeed like a manager 
without a vision and will not build anything. 

166 


today’s methods in business 

A man without the vision of the needs of an 
individual or the protection of homes and old 
age and of the whole structure of life insur¬ 
ance has no business to be engaged in our pro¬ 
fession. So I say the first thing necessary to 
teach is a broader vision. 

The second thing I would set down as a 
necessity in this teaching and training is a 
greater ambition. This greater ambition must 
include an ambition to do a great good; a 
desire to see the results of his work; a great 
desire to build up a good will for himself and 
and an agency for his company; a great de¬ 
sire to be the real life insurance counselor in 
his community, so that the people will come 
to him for their life insurance needs just as 
they go to their fire insurance man or to their 
doctor or their lawyer, in short the ambition 
to realize the height of his profession and to 
know that his profession is just as great and 
important as any of them. That ambition 
must necessarily include persistency. A man 
cannot go from one place to another without 
traveling over the road. Neither can a person 
do any task without doing the things neces¬ 
sary to accomplish the desired results. In 
everything of this kind the natural conditions 
must be expected. When a man engages in 
the dry goods business he has no right to ex¬ 
pect that each month will be a banner month, 

167 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


nor that each month will give him a profit, 
nor that each sale will pay its way, nor that 
each department that he establishes will suc¬ 
ceed, but he must expect that he will have 
loss from bad debts, that he will have depart¬ 
ments that will be miserable failures, that he 
will show a loss on the books, but by good 
management averaged over the year he will 
show a proht and his business will grow from 
year to year until his firm stands at the top of 
his line of business. If he is starting in the 
profession of law he cannot expect to spring 
to prominence at once, in fact the road is a 
long, long one with many difficulties. He 
must expect there will be a long period with¬ 
out clients and that there will be the loss from 
bad debts and that there will be many blue 
days and many months without enough profit 
to cover his board bill. But by persistency 
and good judgment and careful application to 
his business he will win. If a man engages 
in the life insurance business he has no right 
to expect any more than if he were to engage 
in any other business. He must expect his 
loss from bad debts. He must expect his blue 
days. He must expect that there will be some 
weeks and some months that do not yield a 
profit. But he must know that the whole 
year, if he has really applied himself and if 


168 


today’s methods in business 

he has persisted in his business, will average 
up and give him a handsome profit. 

I often think of the story I heard one time 
about the early days of Kansas. It was then 
at the edge of the West. Development had 
extended westward and the line had reached 
about to Kansas City and farther than that 
it was an experiment. It was a wild country 
and the settlers looked upon it as a great cat¬ 
tle country and that it would never be fit for 
anything else. A certain man made a tour 
into that part of the country to get an idea of 
the soil and value of the land. Way out about 
Hutchinson he found it had been the rule for 
settlers to come there and start a cattle ranch. 
But usually they did not have sufficient cap¬ 
ital to tide them over the dry season and con¬ 
sequently they would starve out and their cat¬ 
tle would die or would have to be moved out 
if they had the money to move them. In many 
instances the people themselves died. As 
this man was traveling across this country the 
chief industry he saw was gathering up bones 
and hauling them to town and shipping them 
away. That was the most profitable crop in 
the country. They were the bones of great 
herds of cattle who had died in the drought, 
and among them were other bones—the bones 
of human beings. It was a gruesome sight, 
and yet it did not change this man in his opin- 

169 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

ion. He thought this country was fitted for a 
great wheat country and he said so but they 
merely looked at him and laughed as they had 
laughed at everybody else who had advanced 
any theory but cattle. He believed if the soil 
was plowed deep enough and often enough it 
would cause the moisture to go down so the 
land would be developed. He also believed 
there was water under the ground which had 
come down from the mountains, and they 
could get it by digging wells. 

He argued that no person had sufficient 
interest unless he was willing to put up with 
the hardships of his business. He believed 
that no person should look for good prosperous 
times in any business all the time. So he 
stayed out there and made a wheat farm out of 
land that he bought and his predictions came 
true that that country would be the granary 
of the world. And it was only accomplished 
by his persistency under extreme conditions. 

Cecil Rhodes was one of the greatest 
Englishmen and his two chief qualities were 
vision and persistency. If the life insurance 
man had a little bit of faith in himself as did 
Cecil Rhodes we would have more and greater 
successes in life insurance. When he was 
twenty-eight years old he went to South 
Africa to build his fortune. He had very lit¬ 
tle means at that time and yet before he 

170 


TODAY'S methods in business 

started he made his plans of what he wanted 
to do during his life and he made his will and 
disposed of millions of dollars and all of it he 
had yet to make. But once settled in his plans 
and his purpose and his ambition he kept go¬ 
ing forward with his plan always in mind, 
going from accomplishment to accomplish¬ 
ment. When he died that will he had made at 
twenty-eight was executed and the millions 
he had contemplated were disposed of and the 
universities that he had contemplated estab¬ 
lishing were established and the scholarships 
that he had given in other universities were 
carried on and will be for generations. That 
is the kind of persistency that the life insur¬ 
ance man needs. So I would say that the sec¬ 
ond quality managers should teach is greater 
ambition. 

And the third thing that managers should 
want those under them to do is to fit the sale 
to the man and to meet his needs. This re¬ 
solves itself down to the individual, and yet 
it must be the general principle of the whole 
united sales force. If you taught your force 
to schedule all the needs of each prospect they 
have and try to sell full protection to cover 
those needs, and if they fail in that to sell him 
that 'proportion of the protection that can be 
sold, but to let the prospect know it is only a 
partial covering of his needs, it is my opinion 

171 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

that sales would be very materially increased. 
Very few individuals have nerve enough to sit 
down and figure out their own needs of pro¬ 
tection. It is a duty too easily passed over. 
He knows the duty exists and if the life insur¬ 
ance man would schedule his needs and make 
for him a budget of those needs and present 
them to him it will get him more business. It 
might not get a larger sale now but it will 
pave the way for the balance later on. 

The fourth thing I would set down as 
necessary to teach all of the sales force is that 
each individual must fit himself in as a part 
of the agency. Most managers do not give 
enough thought to that subject. They think 
when they have contracted with Bill Smith 
and he is located out in his territory that he 
is a part of the agency force and will do his 
duty. Let us grant that he does. But there 
is a lot of difference between merely doing a 
duty and doing it so enthusiastically that 
everybody knows about it. It is not only 
necessary that Bill Smith be known as a life 
insurance man, but it is very important that 
he be known as a part of the particular agency 
with which he is associated. It is neces¬ 
sary that he be known as such by the pub¬ 
lic and also by other agents of that agency. 
If a manager has that quality that is neces¬ 
sary for good progress which makes him bring 

172 


today's methods in business 

all of his agents together and make them know 
and feel that his agency is one force that is 
working to build a certain structure, that 
they are all joined together for one purpose 
and they must move forward as one force 
then he builds very rapidly. If his agents 
are in that condition then they respond to 
every call. If there is a contest between their 
agency and some other, that is looked at as a 
matter that must have first attention. Every¬ 
body gets enthusiastic and wants to do his 
share to make his agency win. If it is a spec¬ 
ial month he wants to make his efforts count 
just as much as possible, and he wants to see 
all the other agents of that agency do their 
very best. In other words his enthusiasm in 
that agency will always spur him on to do 
his very best. It will make him and everybody 
around him enthusiastic and then the whole 
agency force will work in unison. It will 
then be true in every agency—“One for all 
and all for one." As important a thing as 
there is to teach in life insurance is that qual¬ 
ity of making an agent feel and realize and act 
so that he is an important part of his agency. 

The most satisfactory ability that a person 
can have is to be able to solve all of his own 
problems and if we can help some person do 
that we have accomplished a great deal. This 
is true of the life insurance agent as well as 

173 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


anybody else and managers have a great deal 
to do in this regard. Usually the best way is 
to put a man on his own responsibility as soon 
as possible after he has been taught the gen¬ 
eral principles of our business, but this must 
be done with great care and judgment. If he 
be set adrift the chances are very much 
against him making a success. This is true 
because only about 10% of the people can suc¬ 
cessfully manage their own affairs. There are 
very few people who have initiative enough 
to accomplish whatever task they have at 
hand. They have to adopt somebody else’s 
ideas, they imitate somebody else, but there 
are very few individual plans followed out to 
success. This is proven by the fact that a 
plan fails in one man’s hands while it is high¬ 
ly successful in another’s. The man who orig¬ 
inates his own ideas and then thinks them 
out and then on his own plan executes them is 
the greatest success because he sees his own 
own plans and knows what he is trying to do 
and the whole scheme is viewed through his 
own eyes, and not through the eyes of some 
other person. It is the duty of the manager 
to plan for his men and keep a little bit ahead 
of them in plans all the time and keep closely 
enough in touch with them to help solve their 
own problems and teach them how best to 
transact their own business. It is his busi- 


174 


today's methods in business 

ness to study their needs and keep them up to 
date on all new matters. For example right 
now the popular things in life insurance are 
business insurance, bequest insurance, and 
insurance for inheritance taxes, paid up in¬ 
surance for the speculator and annuity in¬ 
surance. These are not necessarily new but 
they are popular in the public mind and if a 
thought has proven popular that popularity 
is a great aid in selling. So it is the manager's 
duty at all times to educate his local man and 
help him to solve his problems whether they 
are big or small. 

To managers I want to say that yours is 
an important station in the general scheme of 
the business. Yours is a big job and your 
success depends upon how well you measure 
up to your job, upon how broadly you can see 
your duty and how well you perform it. Your 
company has ideas of what your territory 
owes it. It believes you are broad enough to 
devise ways and means to get that production. 
If you do not get it and if you do not ac¬ 
complish that purpose then it has over esti¬ 
mated you and you go down on the records 
as one who has not made good. It has ideas 
of what progress your agency should make 
each year and when it put you in charge of 
that agency it decided that you were capable 
of making plans which would bring about 

175 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

that program which the agency deserved. If 
you fall down in the production of applica¬ 
tions or in man power you disappoint your 
company and you will disappoint those near 
and dear to you who have faith in you. Your 
company knows what your duties are and so 
do you. It knows what your duties are to 
yourself and to your policyholders and to the 
public, as well as to it. If you fail in any of 
these you have a lopsided agency and never 
can succeed. At the Home Office they know 
whether you are giving proper attention to 
3 7 our agency and whether you are helping 
them to solve their problems and whether you 
are seeing to it that they develop. They know 
whether you are giving proper attention to 
your policyholders and whether your good 
will is extending itself. They know what at¬ 
tention you are giving to the public because 
that is reflected in your agency just as surely 
as anything can be. 

Then they know whether you are work¬ 
ing or not. This whole scheme of our busi¬ 
ness can fail and will fail if we do not give 
it careful daily systematic work. A man¬ 
ager is getting nothing who stands in his 
office and wishes for things to come through. 
A manager who does not inform himself 
on all of the thingfe on which he proposes 
to derive a benefit in his agency is after 


176 


TODAY'S METHODS IN BUSINESS 

all only getting by for the time being. He is 
the man who comes around to the stone wall 
every so often and has to readjust his agency. 
He can start on one track and get along all 
right for a while. Then things begin to go 
down and he has to change. But the real 
manager moves along systematically on all 
lines at the same time and has ability to fol¬ 
low the whole situation as a whole and to get 
his agents to work in unison toward the 
objects he desires as his goal. That kind of 
a manager does not merely occupy the posi¬ 
tion as manager but he lives his job, making 
it a part of his very life and his very make up. 
He is proud of it and everybody knows it. In 
fact everybody is proud to help him along. 

It is not for a company to say to a man¬ 
ager that it offers him an opportunity. There 
is a Giver of all things and a Director of all 
human affairs and human destinies that has 
taken that out of our hands. Opportunities 
are not offered. I firmly believe that every 
man carves out his own existence according 
to his own desire. Most of us at some time 
have an ambition. That ambition fits our 
ideas. It takes persistency and hard work to 
realize all those dreams. 

I read a beautiful story one time where 
three men were taken out in the same field 
and told to look around them. They did and 


177 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

one of them exclaimed “0 how rich!” and 
another said “How strange!” and another 
said “How beautiful!” The field was divided 
among the three and they built homes there 
and in a year some one came back to see what 
answer the earth had to make to each of the 
three men. During that year each of them 
had talked with the ground on which they 
lived and they had received its answer. They 
all had held out their hands and the same 
ground had put its gift into each of them. 
One of them said “Come here and see my beau¬ 
tiful barn,” and another said “Come see my 
museum.” And the other said “Let me read 
to you my poem.” That is a picture of the 
way in which a generation of the race takes 
the great earth and makes of it the different 
things for all of its children. It is the old, 
old story of whatever we give that is what we 
take. It is the rebound of the earth to the 
individual touch, to the different touch which 
each one of us human beings gives to it, and 
we get out of life just exactly what we put 
back into it. 

God gives to each nation only a few men 
of supreme talent. I say He gives them because 
I believe ambition and inspiration must be 
a gift which can be developed as the individ¬ 
ual may see it. The seed must be there or 
there will come forth no fruit. Gold cannot 


178 


today's methods in business 

be made out of mud. It must be discovered. 

\ 

So individuals must be discovered and with 
ability can develop themselves far beyond 
the dreams of the average man. It depends 
entirely upon the spirit and the ambition 
within the individual man. Science tells us 
that the strength of the wings of the young 
eagle develop according to the desire of the 
eagle to fly. So I believe the accomplishment 
of the individual is according to his desire to 
do great things. 

I firmly believe there is always an oppor¬ 
tunity for every one. If the opportunity is not 
grasped at the right time it passes and prob¬ 
ably an individual has lost his chance. Every 
person has a duty which he owes to himself 
and those dependent upon him and chief 
among the elements of that duty is to be alert 
and on the job all the time. If we do that and 
use our best judgment and we are earnest in 
our efforts, in our desires and ambition, there 
need be little question about our success. 

When the pyramids of Egypt were being 
built the king held a lash over a hundred 
thousand of poor souls who were toiling 
through the days to erect those great monu¬ 
ments. Some one conceived the idea of a 
machine that would lift the great blocks of 
stone up into place and save all that great 
loss of life and man power. But the heart of 

179 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

this tyrant king held no love for his slaves. 
Those people meant no more than cattle to 
him, so he pushed aside this engine of prog¬ 
ress and then two thousand years rolled 
away before the same invention was brought 
to the use of man. An opportunity was lost. 
Opportunity may present itself and linger 
around for days or months, or even years, 
and the individual may never grasp it, or an 
opportunity may pass in the twinkling of an 
eye. If the individual is not ready then noth¬ 
ing will be accomplished. Many years ago 
our nation sent astronomers to Africa where 
they could witness a certain condition of the 
heavens which they knew would take place at 
a certain moment. One of the planets would 
pass a certain line at a certain time and a view 
of that passing would prove or disprove im¬ 
portant theories. It meant the fitting up of 
a ship, the ocean was crossed, the site selected, 
the telescope mounted, and everything made 
ready according to science for that opportune 
time when the sun and this planet and the 
earth would all be in line. That was the 
critical moment and it was very brief. The 
astronomer knew that his eye must be at the 
small end of the great telescope when the 
planet went scudding by or the great oppor¬ 
tunity would be lost. He knew when it 
passed that nothing could turn that planet 

180 


today’s methods in business 

back on her axis and that for years there 
would not come another time when these 
three planets would be directly in line again. 
That was the opportunity of the scientists 
and they prepared for that opportunity and 
they took advantage of it. 

A new year is here, for each and every 
one there is an opportunity not made by us 
but made by Him who controls the destiny of 
man. If you are to be successful during this 
year you must grasp the opportunity that is 
before you and perform your duty in such a 
way that it will accomplish the end that you 
desire. If you desire to rule the empire of 
your boyhood dreams you must apply yourself 
now to the task at hand. After all we realize 
that we are traveling to the same destiny. The 
ultimate result of each life is that we do the 
most good that can be accomplished as we go 
along, that we perform the duty that we owe 
to those dependent upon us, and that when we 
have passed away we will leave an estate at 
least large enough to start our dependent ones 
farther along the way without want, and that 
we will leave a good name among those who 
hold us in memory. 


181 












LOYALTY TO THE AGENCY MEANS 
FULL COOPERATION 




Loyalty to the Agency Means Full 

Cooperation 

There was a time when a life insurance 
agency was composed of as many men as could 
be brought together and who worked upon a 
hit-or-miss plan and always at high pressure. 
Today there is no finer organization in exist¬ 
ence than a good life insurance agency, wheth¬ 
er it be large or small. The organization is 
made with three main ideas in view. First, 
giving the best life insurance service that can 
be delivered; second, giving the service to the 
agency in a way that will bring credit; and 
third, the making of the best individual per¬ 
sonal record that can be made. With these 
three ideas in view, supplemented by the 
supervision of the Home Office of the Com¬ 
pany, the agency grows to a great magnitude 
and greatness in service. Not so much atten¬ 
tion is paid today to the volume of business 
but to the quality and stability of the business 
which is built. If it is business that is to re¬ 
main on the books for one year then it is not 
regarded as of any value and no agency wants 
it. In other words the life insurance agency 
has taken on all the rules of good commercial 
business and added it to the ideal business of 


185 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

life insurance, and we are progressing at a 
tremendous rate on account of these changes 
that have been made in life insurance agen¬ 
cies. 

In the first place the company wants to 
know that the agency it establishes is going to 
work hand in hand with the company in all 
of its efforts. It wants to know that it is go¬ 
ing to have complete cooperation, and the 
same idea and requirement is true with the 
agency. Whenever an agent is employed, one 
of the first questions to be ascertained is: “Is 
he a man who will be loyal to this agency and 
give complete cooperation?” In selecting the 
agent the manager goes fully into his charac¬ 
ter, into his reputation, into his ability and 
all the other qualities that go to make a good 
man. But if he has all these qualities and 
still does not have that quality that makes 
him loyal to the organization to the extent 
that he cooperates with them fully in all ef¬ 
forts, then he is not a man who will be of 
value to the organization. Every agent who 
comes into an agency should realize several 
things. First he must know the purpose of 
the life insurance business. That means he 
should know the very principles of our busi¬ 
ness, the foundation of it, the object of it, so 
that he will know what kind of business he is 
doing. 


186 


LOYALTY MEANS PULL COOPERATION 


He should know the magnitude of the 
life insurance business and how it com¬ 
pares with other businesses. If his manager 
tells him that life insurance is “the greatest 
thing in the world/’ he should ask the ques¬ 
tion “Why?” and he should be told why, and 
he should have it firmly fixed in his mind why 
life insurance is “the greatest thing in the 
world.” He should know this both from the 
human interest side as well as the financial 
side. He should know how the business of 
life insurance compares in this country with 
other businesses. He should have firmly 
fixed in his mind the principal purposes of life 
insurance, to create estates, and that these 
estates will take care of the family and the 
business and all special needs of the applicant. 
He should know that life insurance protects 
against all hazards and contingencies that 
occur at death, and he should know that life 
insurance gives comfort and happiness to old 
age. Every person in the country knows of 
the poor house and of the charitable institu¬ 
tions; but the life insurance man should be 
taught to contrast the inmates of these insti¬ 
tutions with the happy, comfortable and con¬ 
tented old age that can be brought about by 
life insurance service. It is not necessary 
that the inmates of these institutions be used 
to make this contrast because there is no 


187 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

more pitiful sight than the person who has 
reached old age and is at the same time wholly 
dependent upon some one or no one. If there 
is not comfort in old age, there is not happi¬ 
ness or contentment, and if there is not hap¬ 
piness and contentment in old age, then it is 
sad indeed. 

The person who has reached the closing 
years of life, whether they be the three 
score years and ten or whether it be at 
a much earlier period brought on by illness 
or hardships, it is a time when the person 
looks back upon his hopes and plans. Youth 
looks forward to accomplishments with great 
hopes, but age looks back, and if it is with sad¬ 
ness that is caused by the knowledge that 
plans have failed and that the hopes can never 
be realized, then it is indeed a very sad end 
for the life. The duty well performed of a 
life insurance man can prevent this. While 
his efforts may not make success in business, 
it can ward off want and distress and put in 
their place comfort and happiness, and that 
is very much worth while. 

The man wno comes into the life insur¬ 
ance business should inquire at once what is 
the object of a life insurance agency, and he 
should study this out to his complete satis¬ 
faction. If he studies it out he will find that 
the agency is only a little company that is 

188 


LOYALTY MEANS PULL COOPERATION 

being built in limited territory, and that this 
little company owes a duty to its patrons to 
give all the service that life insurance can 
give. When he asks that question he should 
solve it to his entire satisfaction and then 
answer the question: “What service can life 
insurance give and what should our agency 
give?” Then after he studies this question, 
he will find that the ambition of the agency 
will require it to build just as well as any 
other agency can be built; and that the agency 
must be well and favorably known in its local¬ 
ity because of the fact that it is the little 
company, and in reality is the company in 
that territory. 

After he studies this subject he will 
go just a little further and ask: “What 
is my duty as an agent and as a part 
of this agency into which I am entering for 
my work?” It will be interesting for him to 
follow out this question and answer it to his 
satisfaction. He will remember that when the 
manager talked with him about going into 
the life insurance business that he pictured 
the business as it is. He showed its progress. 
He showed just what could be accomplished 
in the business and when the contract was 
made and executed he was then told he had 
permanent employment; that he was his own 
boss and that he would not have to come in 


189 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

response to a bell at a certain time to start 
his work, and that he would answer to no one’s 
call, and that his pay would be in accordance 
with his ability and efforts. He w T as told that 
he could raise his salary at any time he saw 
fit by putting forth just a little bit more effort. 
He was told he did not need capital in his 
business and what he had invested in it would 
be his time and ability. He was told all these 
things and they were absolutely true. Yet 
he must ask himself—What are my duties in 
this agency? 

He has many duties as a member of this 
agency. First, as he goes about his duties he 
is the representative of his agency and his 
little company out in the field, and he must be 
a creditable representative. There must never 
be any question about his transactions. He 
must in all of his transactions help to build 
the good will of this little company out there. 
If he is to do that he must know the life insur¬ 
ance business. That means that he must know 
its objects and its aims and its purposes. He 
must know what it stands for and what it 
does, what it can accomplish and how it can 
accomplish it. He must know how a life in¬ 
surance company transacts its business. He 
must know how it is governed by the State. 
Then he must realize WHY he is in the life 
insurance business. If he is in the business 


190 


LOYALTY MEANS FULL COOPERATION 

merely for the dollars and cents, and for what 
he can get out of if, then he is going to miss 
the main purpose of the business, both in suc¬ 
cess and in accomplishments: because to do 
life insurance business in a creditable way 
means that he must sincerely and earnestly 
meet the needs of the policyholder, and these 
needs cannot be met without a full under¬ 
standing of the conditions. No man can fully 
understand conditions if he looks only to the 
dollars and cents he is going to make out of 
the transaction. So he must settle in his own 
mind why he is in the life insurance business. 
In doing that he is going to make his plans 
for the future. He is going to make his plans, 
and to carry them out means that he will be 
a success. 

Then he must know the goods he has to 
sell. It is true today, and has been for a long 
time, that any man in this whole country can 
blindfold himself and pick out any one of the 
hundreds of policies issued by any legal re¬ 
serve life insurance company and get value 
received for the premium paid. But that 
does not mean that the policy he would pick 
in this way would meet his needs. It might 
be very far from meeting his needs. So it is 
the duty of the agent to know the particular 
policy that will fit the needs of his policy¬ 
holder after he has ascertained the condition, 


191 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

and then the policy once placed will be a source 
of satisfaction and will bring more business 
and much good will to the agent. If a policy 
be placed upon an applicant which does not 
meet his needs it will be a source of continual 
annoyance, just the same as any other article 
which does not suit or meet the needs of the 
owner. 

Another duty that the local agent has is 
to know the full and complete needs of the 
prospect. Why? Because he cannot have a 
full and complete view of the situation until 
he has done so. He should list the different 
needs in dollars and cents so that when he 
adds them up he will have the total needs of 
the prospect. There is so much needed for 
groceries and meat, house rent, clothing and 
all the other expenses that have to be met to 
maintain the family. So much for pleasure 
and entertainment, so much for the edu¬ 
cation of the children, and so much for 
all the different items that go to make up all 
the needs of the prospect. Then suppose 
when it is all listed and added up it amounts 
to an enormous sum, say $25,000, while the 
income of the prospect is, say $1200 a year. 
It is evident then that he cannot carry $25,000 
of life insurance. But right there is the value 
of making this schedule. It shows to the pros¬ 
pect his needs and how poorly he is protecting 

192 


LOYALTY MEANS FULL COOPERATION 

them, and with the assistance of the agent 
he can improve his situation in some way. 
If he cannot fully cover his needs maybe he 
can half cover them, and if not half, maybe 
he can one-quarter cover them. If he covers 
only a quarter of them, then the agent im¬ 
presses upon him the necessity of increasing 
that coverage just as soon as possible so that 
it will be one-half and eventually completely 
covered. It leaves the situation so that the 
agent can always go back on an unfinished 
transaction. 

The life insurance agent occupies a posi¬ 
tion that is not equalled by any other in the 
world. The law recognizes communications 
from a patient to a doctor as confidential and 
sacred; likewise a client with a lawyer. The 
life insurance man occupies a higher position 
than either of them, because in his transac¬ 
tion and in his scheduling the whole plans 
and assets and liabilities of the prospect, he 
receives information that should be held in 
greater confidence than that of the doctor or 
the lawyer. In many instances the prospect 
lays bare his family conditions and secrets 
as well as his financial situation, and if the 
life insurance man is broad enough to realize 
how sacred these communications are and will 
treat them accordingly, he will build into his 
situation as adviser and counselor a loyalty 


193 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

to his policyholders and a good will that will 
mean more than anything else he can do. The 
individual agent should realize that he is a 
counselor, and that the advice he gives is just 
as important as that of the doctor or the law’- 
yer, and that the facts and communications 
that come to him are to be treated as sacred. 
He must never lose sight of this fact, whether 
he has his policyholder one-half insured or 
one-tenth insured. 

He must learn at once that his duty 
to his policyholders is just beginning when 
he delivers the policy, and that duty 
requires him to keep in touch with the 
policyholder and his family. Possibly the 
situation may change when the designation 
of the present beneficiary does not serve the 
needs of the policyholder. Maybe the bene¬ 
ficiary needs to be changed. Many things 
may occur that render it necessary that this 
local agent keep closely in touch with the 
policyholder and his family, because he is the 
point of contact between the Company and 
the policyholder. He is closest to the policy¬ 
holder and therefore must be the company’s 
direct representative at all times. Of course 
he must know that it is a duty to give com¬ 
plete life insurance service at all times, and 
that service must be given so completely and 
so cheerfully that it is not warped or changed 

194 


LOYALTY MEANS FULL COOPERATION 

by prejudice or by hope of personal gain. If 
it is information about another policy or an¬ 
other company, that must be given with ex¬ 
actly the same true earnestness as the trans¬ 
action of any part of his business. 

Then he must realize another fact that is 
just as important as any we have mentioned 
before, and that is he must fully cooperate 
with the agency. Just as the company has 
made its plans, the agency has likewise made 
its plans for the year's work, and the agency 
asks every individual in the agency to make 
his plans. All of them fit in together to carry 
out the grand scheme and plan of the parent 
company. If these are to be realized and car¬ 
ried out, then the individual agent must co¬ 
operate fully. He must know what is going 
on. If there is a plan for a big business for 
any particular month, then he must fall in 
with that plan and make it his plan, and 
cooperate to the fullest extent to make that 
plan go over as big as possible. 

Now as an individual agent when he 
realizes that this is a part of his duties, he 
thinks back to the time when the manager 
made his contract and when he told him he 
was not to answer to any man's call or any 
company's whistle, and he says “Now right 
at the very beginning of my business I must 
do as somebody else says." He is wrong. 


195 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

That is not the case. No manager or any 
one else is going to ask him to do anything 
for an individual. Then he stops to think 
and he studies over this situation and asks 
himself: “Why should I cooperate with the 
agency? Why shouldn’t I just do as I see fit? 
If I want to work in a particular way this 
month, why shouldn’t I just feel free to do 
so?” He argues the question out to a final 
conclusion and he satisfies himself, and in 
doing so he thinks of many things. Probably 
he would carry himself clear back to the very 
beginning of civilization and begin to think 
about organization. He realizes that the 
savages traveled in tribes and that they did 
not have homes as civilized people have today. 
If a man died there was just one less in the 
tribe. He had no responsibilities. He was only 
one of the tribe. After the agent studies out 
this question he realizes that force first made 
conquest, and that conquest then made law, 
and that the force used by the tribe which en¬ 
abled them to accomplish something caused 
them to organize, and later that civilization 
grew out of that. 

A man then established a home and then 
several home owners joined together for 
their protection, and when they did this they 
acknowledged that each of them had certain 
rights which all the rest must recognize. 

196 


LOYALTY MEANS FULL COOPERATION 

Then instead of roaming over the prairies as 
a tribe it was the duty of the owner of that 
home to turn his attention to that home. 
Then we think about a modern business organ¬ 
ization today and we realize it has a head, and 
that it is divided into departments, and that 
it has a sales force, and that the sales force 
has a head and it too is divided into different 
groups or agencies, and that a general plan 
must be made by the head of the organization 
and that plan carried on down through the 
organization in order to make it win. 

We see and realize that modern business is 
built in this way and we realize that the men 
who will succeed in that organization are the 
ones who cooperate to the fullest extent In 
their cooperation they are not humiliating 
themselves, they are not serving any individ¬ 
ual, but they are being directed by some per¬ 
son so that all working together make greater 
results. Then we study out the organization 
of an army, from its officers clear down to the 
private soldiers, and realize how they operate. 
We remember how one soldier salutes another 
and how they salute the officer and we ask, 
“Why? Is it the tribute of one individual to 
another ?” And then we answer with the 
knowledge which helps to solve the situation 
by saying that the salute is not to the individ¬ 
ual but to the emblem and the cause. If we 


197 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

salute the flag we salute our nation and its 
emblem. If one soldier salutes another it is 
not an individual recognition but is a recog¬ 
nition of the emblem, the position, the very 
government itself. 

Then we carry the argument farther 
and say, “What is fame and reputation?” . 
After considering that thought we con¬ 
clude it is only what we are in the opin¬ 
ions of our friends or our foes. No mat¬ 
ter what we accomplish if that is not com¬ 
mented upon and carried from friend to 
friend, it may as well never have been done 
so far as our fame and reputation is con¬ 
cerned. Then we carry the argument on 
farther and we conclude that man cannot 
travel alone, that he cannot get any place with¬ 
out organization. Not only must he have 
plans to make a success, but these plans must 
be a part of a bigger scheme than any one 
man can have. Then we remember what 
Riley said in one of his poems— 

“No man is great till he can see 
How less than little he would be 
If stripped by self, and stark and bare 
He hung his sign out anywhere.” 

This expresses the situation very forcibly 
because in this life we are very much de¬ 
pendent upon everybody else. Then we real- 


198 


LOYALTY MEANS FULL COOPERATION 

ize that we are barely half efficient. We say 
we are masters of our own fate, that we have 
our plans and all that, and yet there is not 
one of us but who can do at least one-half 
more than we do accomplish. If a man tried 
to travel along on his own plans without 
them being assisted by the plans of a super¬ 
ior he would not be one-tenth efficient. Thus 
the agent begins to realize what is meant hy 
cooperation with his manager. He begins to 
realize that there are several kinds of cooper¬ 
ation that do things for us: cooperation 
with policyholders, with the public, with oth¬ 
er agents as well with his manager. He 
begins to think just what that kind of cooper¬ 
ation is going to bring to him and he is sur¬ 
prised as he studies it out. 

The first thing it brings is loyalty and you 
can’t be loyal to another person without be¬ 
ing loyal to yourself. You cannot be loyal to 
persons or individuals without building your 
own character stronger, and generally you 
can’t be loyal without being more thorough 
and without taking a great interest in the 
business. Loyalty means that the agent is 
going to join hands on every effort and that 
he is going to respond to every call to the full 
extent, not that he wants to pay tribute to 
his manager, because he realizes that esteem 
and love are never to be sold, but because it 

199 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


is a part of the general plan and by helping 
in that plan he gains strength and assistance 
for himself. Perhaps you have not thought 
about it in that light before. How do you 
gain strength by loyalty and cooperation? 
Just simply because you cannot operate alone; 
because you must have plans and you must 
have assistance in carrying out these plans. 
If you were to go up into the north woods, one 
of your great hazards would be the wolves. 
You realize that one lone wolf is not dangerous 
but a pack of wolves would be dangerous. You 
would realize, as someone has said, that “The 
strength of the wolf is in the pack, and the 
strength of the pack is in the wolf.” And 
this brings to our minds that an agency can 
be no stronger than its individuals, but if each 
joins hands, no matter if one-half are weak, 
the organization will be strong, and the in¬ 
dividual no matter whether he is strong or 
weak will receive strength from that organ¬ 
ization. 

Strength is not all that he will get, either. 
He will derive enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is 
generated. It is not a quality which natur¬ 
ally exists in a man. One man out on an 
island would have a hard time generating en¬ 
thusiasm. But one man in a crowd can trans¬ 
mit enthusiasm from one to another until it 
becomes a great force. You have been in 


200 


LOYALTY MEANS FULL COOPERATION 

political meetings and have seen plans just 
naturally come to a head. There had been 
an idea in the minds of one or two people and 
enthusiasm generated through the crowd un¬ 
til it culminated in the nomination of the man 
they wanted, and with the bands playing and 
all the enthusiasm coming to the surface at 
one time, you were just simply carried off 
your feet. This is the enthusiasm that comes 
from an organization. That is something an 
agent gets by cooperation with his manager. 

Then he gets earnestness. Strength and 
enthusiasm and all this creates more pounds 
of steam than anything else, and it is surpris¬ 
ing how it will carry him along. Then there 
is another thing that comes from cooperation 
with the agency. Every agency has certain 
traditions which come along as it grows and 
as these traits get established the agent learns 
to expect them to help him make his plans 
and carry them out. Every college has its 
traditions. There is some certain time that 
something occurs and great interest is taken 
in that event. It comes to be a very part of 
the student body, and no matter how long 
they have been away from the college, they 
remember and love that tradition. Nations 
have their traditions. We have our Fourth 
of July and we have our Memorial Day. We 
have other days that have grown out of fra- 

201 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

ditions. States have their traditions and 
agencies have their traditions. Families have 
their traditions. Every individual has his 
traditions. There are days and events in a 
life that stand out and as they come around 
year by year they grow to be a part of a 
person and they enter into and influence his 
business, and from all of them he gathers 
strength. 

So let us just say that every individual by 
cooperation with his agency helps to observe 
the traditions of his agency, reinforces his 
earnestness, makes greater enthusiasm, makes 
himself stronger, and gains much in loyalty, 
which means that he has built up and 
strengthened his own character. 

Then we ask ourselves, are these things 
required? No they are not required by any¬ 
body except the agent himself. The company 
knows that if it has an agency that does not 
cooperate, it can never be a success. The 
manager knows if he has an individual who 
does not cooperate that he cannot be a suc¬ 
cess. This is not because the agency or in¬ 
dividual has not responded, but because he is 
not right. He is lacking in an important 
quality. The first thing that an individual 
agent should learn is that if he does not co¬ 
operate with the plans of his agency and the 
company he never can expect to be a success 

202 


LOYALTY MEANS FULL COOPERATION 


in the business. Some countries try to gov¬ 
ern their people by force and the result is 
turmoil and war. The American people are 
enthusiastic and progressive. They are for¬ 
ever putting some individual upon a pedestal 
and then knocking him down. Business is 
transacted on honor. A man may get up to 
that point where he is on a pedestal, but after 
he gets there he must stand on his own 
merits. He can work up but he has to main¬ 
tain his position. So the very first thing that 
the agent should realize is that he should re¬ 
quire of himself this cooperation. Nobody 
else can require it. It benefits him more than 
anybody else, in fact he is about the only per¬ 
son who is benefited. All through life we find 
that we are continually needing and asking 
for more than we give. 

Then we go on and ask: “What constitutes 
a satisfactory agent?” As we study it out, 
the answer comes very quickly and very 
forcibly. We say the successful individual is 
he who is ambitious because he has a plan and 
aims high. He knows where he is going and 
what he expects to accomplish. He is satis¬ 
factory who is industrious because he works 
systematically and towards a certain aim. He 
is satisfactory who is enthusiastic because at 
all times he is alert to every plan that gives 
him strength and makes him grow. He is 


203 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

satisfactory who is responsive because he 
enters into every plan of his company and his 
agency. When some plan is to be accomp¬ 
lished he falls into line and adds his very best 
efforts knowing that therefrom he will derive 
strength for himself. 

The satisfactory agent is continually 
building his character and is usually one 
of those men who try not to attempt 
to adopt a new character or a new per¬ 
son for himself. He is not ashamed of the 
character his mother started. He believes he 
can add to that character and make it strong¬ 
er and better than on any other foundation 
he can build on. He is not ashamed of his 
boyhood but goes on and adds to those boy¬ 
hood ideals to make him better and stronger. 
Then we realize in studying this situation we 
have answered all these questions and have 
made a complete analysis of the agent in his 
position, and if he is the right kind of a man 
he realizes he ought to cooperate and get into 
every plan that is made: that he ought to help 
and assist because he knows he is going to 
get back more than he gives in increased 
strength and enthusiasm. He realizes that 
in doing honor, he takes honor. He realizes 
that every one of his good efforts reflects 
credit on him. He knows if he casts his 


204 


LOYALTY MEANS FULL COOPERATION 

bread upon the waters it is going to come 
back greatly multiplied. 

The Lord may or may not have intended 
a man for an insurance salesman. There is 
no one that can prove that but himself. If 
he has realized the things I have discussed in 
relation to himself as an individual agent, 
and in connection with the agency he is work¬ 
ing under, he realizes that if his success is 
to be accomplished, he must decide that the 
plans and the schemes of the organization are 
his plans. He will go awry, if he does not 
thoroughly thresh the matter out in his own 
mind, and after being convinced, then enter 
earnestly and enthusiastically into the plans 
he has made, using them as a part of his plans 
to be carried out and executed. He cannot 
force himself to be a part of an organization 
unless he has fully decided and entered into 
a full cooperation of its plans. That is the 
reason in every organization that some men 
fail while others succeed. The man who has 
not decided or who wavers in his decision 
always fails. But he who makes his decision, 
and decides that he is in the right place, and 
then cooperates to the full extent to gain all 
the strength and enthusiasm and advantage 
from every plan, and who responds to the call 
and plans of his superiors, is the man who 
always succeeds. 


205 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


“One ship goes east, another west, 

By the selfsame winds that blow; 

Tis the set of the sail, and not the gale 
That determines the way they go. 

Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate, 
As we voyage along through life; 

Tis the set of the soul that decides the goal, 
And not the calm or the strife.” 


206 







< 


/ 

















MAKING A LIFE INSURANCE AGENT 
A REAL COUNSELOR 




Making a Life Insurance Agent a Real 

Counselor 

If we would make our life insurance agents 
real counselors then we must begin with their 
introduction into the life insurance business. 
If they are taught right and proper from the 
beginning of their entry into the profession 
of life insurance then there is no difficulty in 
making of them real life insurance men, 
which includes that of being life insurance 
counselors. I have always thought that the 
agency side of the life insurance business is 
about the best demonstration of the inef¬ 
ficiency of man that I have ever seen. Life 
insurance companies today realize that the 
secret of our achievement is to bring the whole 
man to the day’s work. Not a lopsided man; 
not a half educated man; not a man using only 
a part of his ability or doing only a part of 
his duties, but a man with a purpose in life 
and a goal for his aim. We have often seen a 
fruit grower cut off one-half of the branches 
of a tree in order to make it grow better and 
bear better fruit, and it is often necessary for 
a company to cut out one-half of a man’s 
ideas to make him a better life insurance 
agent We realize today that it takes concen- 

211 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

tration to sell, that it takes knowledge of the 
goods, and above all that it takes right meth¬ 
ods, which are rapidly coming about by a 
system of education which has been adopted 
today. Not only is a man who goes into the 
life insurance business taught to sell but he is 
taught to retain the business he has sold, and 
more than that he is taught to make the pro¬ 
ceeds of the policies he sells meet the object 
of the policyholder. 

Within the memory of all of us we can 
think back to the time when the life insur¬ 
ance agent was in the same class and had 
about the same reputation as the lightning 
rod agent. His was not a profession or a 
business. It was known as the graveyard of 
the man who had failed in all kinds of busi¬ 
ness. As a consequence of the employment of 
that character of agents the business unfor¬ 
tunately got a reputation at times which it 
really did not deserve, and yet nothing more 
could be expected. We are very glad today 
that this condition has been changed, and we 
are prouder still that the life insurance com¬ 
panies themselves made the change. It did 
not take any law to change our business. The 
companies themselves realized that the clean¬ 
sing must come from within, and by their 
own methods of selecting, training and edu¬ 
cating their agents they have made this 


212 


THE LIFE AGENT A REAL COUNSELOR 

change and elevated their business of life in¬ 
surance selling to as high a plane as any 
other business in the world. We realize that 
laws cannot make salesmen. We know that 
every man must travel on his own power. 

Many ages ago the medical profession was 
without honor and without credit. If a per¬ 
son in that day wanted to refer to some person 
as the biggest liar in the world he compared 
him with the doctor. All of the medical prac¬ 
tice at that time was entirely upon theory. It 
was a very common saying, “He is as unre¬ 
liable as a physician.” A student who took 
up the profession of medicine went to Italy or 
to Southern France and studied for his pro¬ 
fession, a little bit about anatomy, but a great 
deal more about the mysteries of the profes¬ 
sion. They tried to tell him about the origin 
of the soul and about where it was located in 
the body and where it was not located, and 
how it left the body, and how it affected dis¬ 
ease, etc. They taught him nothing of the 
practical side of the profession or of curing 
people's ills, the real object of the medical 
profession. This condition existed less than 
three hundred years ago. In contrast with that 
time consider the medical profesion today. 
Think of the great medical schools that are 
teaching anatomy, teaching all they have 
learned about the human body, the causes and 


213 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


effects. And think of the many clinics that 
are held all over this country that are avail¬ 
able to all the medical profession and giving 
them actual practice. So today the doctor is 
a practical man. Just a few days ago I heard 
one of the greatest men in the medical pro¬ 
fession talk on “The Family Physician.” He 
stated that most all the medical profession 
has of value on certain diseases and especial¬ 
ly on epidemic and violent diseases had come 
from the family physician in the little com¬ 
munity, or from the cross roads of the coun¬ 
try. I was glad to hear that and I was glad 
to hear one other thing that he said and that 
was that the value of the medical profession 
is not alone in its theories, not in its great 
men, but in the family physician who not only 
practices medicine and treats the patient, 
but is the adviser of the family. 

He is the adviser of the family in more 
things than medicine. I can remember back 
to the time when just that same thing ex¬ 
isted in the locality in which I lived. The 
family physician was consulted about all 
matters of business affecting the family. 
If the head of the family had been called 
to his reward the widow and the chil¬ 
dren talked to the family physician about 
what ought to be done in this and that, and 
he gave of his advice freely. And in this 


214 


THE LIFE AGENT A BEAL COUNSELOR 

talk I recently heard by Dr. Billings he em¬ 
phasized this as the greatest value to the med¬ 
ical profession, and that the family physician 
who made of himself not only a good doctor for 
all of the ills of life but a good, honest adviser 
of families, made of himself a man that was 
of value to humanity. 

And doesn’t this give us about the correct 
vision we would like to have of a life insur¬ 
ance agent? We realize that the life insur¬ 
ance agent must do more than sell life insur¬ 
ance policies. We know that when a life in¬ 
surance policy is delivered the service of life 
insurance is just beginning. In the first place 
our successful life insurance agent must be 
taught to fit the policy to the needs of the 
policyholder. That need is the object for 
which he buys life insurance. If this is true 
then the object is defeated if the agent does 
not know and follow the circumstances and 
conditions of this policyholder. Maybe in 
one year’s time or in ten years’ time his needs 
have changed; maybe the needs and require¬ 
ments of those dependent upon him and those 
for whom he bought the insurance have 
changed; probably the beneficiary ought to be 
changed; likely the method of payment ought 
to be changed; and it is in that kind of coun¬ 
sel that the life insurance agent does his duty 
and does it creditably. The object is defeated 


215 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

if at the death of the policyholder the money 
does not go where he desired it to go. So it is 
important that the life insurance agent give 
counsel to the beneficiary and to the family. 
The life agent should make himself an ad¬ 
viser upon all questions touching the estate of 
his policyholders. The question of taxes and 
the provision therefor is an important subject 
upon which he should be an adviser. The 
question of wills and the descent of prop¬ 
erty is another subject for the life insur¬ 
ance agent to give advice on, not as a law¬ 
yer, not to set himself up as a technical 
adviser and enter the practice of law, but the 
broader vision, that of personal adviser or 
what should be done to meet a certain situa¬ 
tion. The lawyer in his profession can tell 
them how to do it but the life insurance man 
is about the only person in the world, outside 
of the prospect himself, who has given any 
thought to a particular estate and to the pro¬ 
tection of certain persons dependent upon 
that prospect, and only in a very few in¬ 
stances has the prospect himself done so. The 
lawyer has not done so, neither has the bank¬ 
er, neither has the minister, because that is 
not a part of their business. None of these 
persons has thought of the true phase of the 
applicant’s situation. 


218 


THE LIFE AGENT A REAL COUNSELOR 

It may be that the applicant would like to 
leave certain bequests and he has not the 
estates created to do so. Possibly in his 
travels through life he feels an obligation to 
some person or an institution for a good done 
him, and he feels that he would like to leave 
a bequest to repay that debt. No person other 
than the life insurance man can show him 
how he can do this. But he can show him by 
the payment of a little sum each year that at 
the time of his death his bequest will go to the 
person or institution to which he wishes to 
discharge his duty, be it large or small. That 
is a part of a life insurance man’s business. 
It is to the life insurance man that his own 
policyholders and the members of his policy¬ 
holder’s family should go for their advice. 
They should go to him instead of to their fam¬ 
ily physician. We talk about creating estates. 
If we create estates then it is our duty to see 
to it that those estates are preserved and that 
they go as intended, especially the life insur¬ 
ance estates that our agents create, because 
in the selecting of that policy our agent builds 
up a theory of how this estate is created to 
meet a certain need and he thereby convinces 
his prospect of the correctness of this theory 
when he secured his application. 

If that were the end of the life insurance 
agent’s duties then our business is not of a 

217 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


permanent character. But that is not the 
end and the life agent today must have 
a broader vision of the life insurance busi¬ 
ness. He must realize that the profession 
of the life insurance agent begins with 
the prospect but it may not end for many 
generations. He must have a vision of the 
life insurance profession which enables him 
to build the foundation for his agency on 
very broad lines. That foundation must be 
broad enough and solid enough that it will 
carry a structure as strong as he wants to 
erect. He must not only see the prospect and 
those dependent upon him but he must see 
the last days of the prospect’s life and the 
lives of the children who are dependent upon 
him. He must realize that the prospect may 
have varied interests, and he must realize 
that if all his ships come home from sea his 
prosperity might defeat the purpose of his 
life insurance according to his original plans; 
or if just a part of his ships come home his 
needs might require life insurance; if none of 
his ships come home the life insurance that 
he has would be the protecting estate for those 
dependent upon him, the anchor which would 
hold him safe forever. 

A few years ago a life insurance company 
did not think of communicating with another 
life insurance company about an agent if he 

218 


THE LIFE AGENT A REAL COUNSELOR 

applied for a position. They were too eager 
to employ him under any and all circum¬ 
stances. They would not think of asking 
another company about a certain policy be¬ 
ing in force if they had information that 
their own agent was twisting the busi¬ 
ness. These conditions have changed today 
and we are glad to say that the confi¬ 
dence of one company in another is get¬ 
ting upon the same basis as the confidence of 
one individual in another. An instance of 
this is the fact that today if a company has a 
death claim outside of its own territory they 
very often send it to an agent of another com¬ 
pany in that territory to make up the proofs 
of death and to pay the claim, and in this way 
render the real service which the beneficiary 
deserves. That never would have been thought 
of a few years ago but it is true today and it 
does show that companies are seeing to it that 
all the people who deserve it are getting the 
real counsel of life insurance. 

I saw recently in a newspaper report that 
a certain person’s tangible estate was valued 
at $2,500 and that his good will was valued 
at $7,500. It takes little proof for us people 
in the life insurance business that good will 
is the greatest asset of all. We want to create 
the most good will that we possibly can, and 
we have learned today that the most effective 


219 


THE EMPIRE OP LIFE INSURANCE 


way to create good will is through the right 
kind of agents in the field. We have learned 
to realize that the agent in his territory, 
whether it be large or small, is really the 
company in that territory, and it is to him 
that the policyholders look and get their view 
of the institution. For this reason we have 
Policyholders’ Month in which it is not the 
agent’s object to write all the life insurance 
he can during the month but to call upon 
every policyholder and extend his acquaint¬ 
ance and promote his good will and to get 
acquainted with all the policyholder’s family 
so that the good will of the company will be 
extended and his agency thereby broadened. 
When Policyholders’ Month is first estab¬ 
lished with this kind of an object in view it is 
sometimes difficult to make the agent realize 
that he is not wasting his time, but those who 
have gone from year to year in Policyholders’ 
Month begin to reap their reward and see the 
real value of building on such a broad basis. 
They then realize that there is something more 
in life than mere work and compensation. 
They realize that every human being has a 
heart and that most of them are prompted to 
their actions by a feeling toward their fellow 
man. And then they realize that their profes¬ 
sion is not one that is narrow and selfish but 
broad and of benefit to the whole of humanity. 


220 


THE LIFE AGENT A REAL COUNSELOR 

Life insurance companies are not private 
institutions, they are public institutions and 
serve the public in a broader way than the 
railroads or the banks, and more than any 
other institution do they touch and affect the 
American Home—the unit of American civil¬ 
ization. 

The life insurance agent should be taught 
to forget, in a measure, his own pecuniary in¬ 
terests. He should be taught that in forget¬ 
ting his interests he is building better than in 
any other way. He should be taught that 
“Service” of the life insurance agent is the 
biggest word in our language and that the 
business cannot grow today unless it be built 
on “Service.” To be sure, he cannot entirely 
forget himself and those dependent upon him 
because he too must live, but if he can be 
made to see that the profession of life insur¬ 
ance is one great broad service to humanity in 
which he can put in his time serving others 
and building for others—serving humanity in 
a way that will last for all time—and get bet¬ 
ter paid for it than he can in any other way 
or in any other kind of business, then he will 
build and build well. 

I think the duty of the life insurance com¬ 
panies is to properly educate their agents 
when they enter the business and be sure to 
impress upon them that it is infinitely better 

221 



THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

to build a life than to make a living. If we 
teach them the correct vision of the life insur¬ 
ance business then they will have the ambi¬ 
tion to carry on that business as it really is. 
That ambition is worthy; it is what will make 
them go ahead and achieve success. It looks 
further ahead than today or tomorrow. It 
sees the agency ten, fifteen or twenty-five 
years from now builded on a solid foundation, 
an agency that has its protecting arms over 
thousands of policyholders. Through all this 
the agent will see his own life and the lives of 
those dependent in his own home. He may be 
a poor boy starting in the business, if so he can 
see his own little home—owned by himself in 
his own name—a pleasant little home with 
vines growing over the door and someone 
waiting inside the door, some one waiting and 
expecting him to make good. The wife is at 
the window expecting him to make good; the 
children expect their daddy to make a great 
success in the life insurance business. 

If the life insurance agent has an ambi¬ 
tion of this kind then his hope and his ambi¬ 
tion will see all this and it will make his star 
of hope and ambition brighter than anything 
else in his life, and he will fix this star so far 
out in the horizon that there will be no ques¬ 
tion about his achievement. I am firmly of the 
opinion that the human element in the life 


222 



THE LIFE AGENT A REAL COUNSELOR 


insurance business is the greatest element 
there is, and if we can teach all of our agents 
to vision the long road of life then we have 
accomplished great things. We shall accomp¬ 
lish much if we teach our agents to see and 
to know that along this road of life some place 
for every one there is a home and to that some¬ 
body the road that leads home is the dearest 
road of all, and that it is his duty in deliver¬ 
ing life insurance service to take the prospect 
along the road of life and safely conduct him 
home. 


223 


4 


THE LIFE INSURANCE MAN’S 
RESPONSIBILITY TO OLD AGE 
































The Life Insurance Man's Responsibility 

to Old Age 

It is good for us to get close to nature as 
often as possible, where we can really see what 
nature is and what she does. And it is well 
while we are so close to nature and while we 
have time to observe and feel the very atmos¬ 
phere that we have some day dreams, and it 
would be well if we thought over the entire 
scheme of things in which we are working. 
We don't do this as much as we ought to and 
just a little reverie of this kind will do us 
good. We could even go back to the beginning 
of time and know at the beginning the great 
Creator of all things created light and dark¬ 
ness, and at the time of this creation they 
were separated by two spans of time—a day 
and a night. We know ever since that time 
there has been a continual effort to keep them 
separated. If we ease up on our efforts for a 
single minute the darkness will blot out the 
light. This is not only true in the elements 
but in everything else. It is true in the matter 
of education. There must be a continual 
struggle to enable education to predominate 
over ignorance; there must be a continual 
struggle to keep the good better than the bad; 

227 


THE EMPIRE OP LIFE INSURANCE 

there is a continual struggle to keep law in the 
place of disorder. We have seen this so forci¬ 
bly illustrated to us in the past few years 
that sometimes we wonder what would be the 
effect if the entire human race would become 
inactive for a year or two. We would find 
ourselves back so far there would be no his¬ 
tory to compare the situation with. It would 
be a serious condition. This is the history of 
man from the beginning down to the present 
time. 

Long before the beginning of civilization 
of this world there was made the land and 
sea, and there was a purpose in everything. 
The sea was inhabited with fish and reptiles, 
some good and some bad. The land was in¬ 
habited by animals, some good and some bad, 
but none of them with intelligence to make 
anything more out of nature than what they 
found. If we think back over the situation 
we will conclude that the sea part of this 
universe gave us water and that the land part 
gives us many other things; that both of them 
give us food. The fishes of the sea are used 
by man; the animals of the land are used by 
man as well for beasts of burden as for food. 
But none of these animals or fishes do any¬ 
thing whatever for the improvement of nat¬ 
ural conditions as they find them. So far 
as we are able to determine there are few ani- 


228 


RESPONSIBILITY TO OLD AGE 

mals that have intelligence enough to organ¬ 
ize into communities. So far as we know 
they have no ability and incentive to improve 
things one particle. But man was made with 
a countenance that looks upward. He was 
the last of the creatures of the earth to be 
made. Whether it was for the reason that all 
the forms of countenance had been used in 
supplying the animals or not we do not know, 
but it remains any way that man is the only 
animal being that looks upward. Man has 
intelligence, and since the creation of man he 
has improved his condition and he has im¬ 
proved in that proportion as he has been able 
in every particular locality to separate the 
light and darkness. 

This universe is so made that even the 
climates of the different countries are some¬ 
times a hazard to man. The tropical climates 
very often so take away the incentive and 
pride of a man that he loses his character. It 
is hard for him to retain that position at 
which he has arrived. The countries of the 
far north have their hazard, and likewise the 
temperate zones in which we live. All of 
them present to man a difficulty and a hazard 
and he must continually be on his guard to 
progress. The savage tribes that used to roam 
over this land and through these forests se¬ 
cured their living from the lake and from the 


229 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

forest. They added nothing to nature. It is 
true that their traditions were unique but as a 
race they did not progress. They built no 
homes; they built no cities, hence their needs 
were only that of a living as they roamed from 
place to place. But the race with a purpose, 
that part of the human race that has gone 
ahead, that part of the human race that looks 
to a living God and to the protection of the 
soul of a man has progressed. He has built 
cities; he has built homes; he recognizes re¬ 
sponsibilities. He also recognizes that nature 
has placed this land and this sea here for the 
use of man, and that man in his intelligence 
was made to dominate all else, and that the 
animals and the fishes and all else on the 
earth are for his use. He realizes that if he 
has luxuries they must come from nature; he 
realizes that if he has a living it must come 
from nature, and he must realize that it is 
the Creator that is furnishing all these things 
to man. He realizes that man is the only 
force in the world that can make it better. 
He knows that nature will build trees better 
than he can build; that nature builds vege¬ 
tation better than he can build it; but he also 
knows that there is no other force that can 
build character, and that so far as the prog- 

230 


RESPONSIBILITY TO OLD AGE 


ress of the world is concerned, man and his 
actions, in other words the character of man, 
is the sole index of progress. 

Man may use his intellect and his ability 
but he cannot equal nature in what she has 
to do. Man can paint a picture of the forest, 
of the trees and the lake. He may make it 
so it is beautiful to the eye. But nature can 
paint it better. But what man can do is to 
build a government, a state, a society to gov¬ 
ern and operate the world to its advantage. 
If he builds well then there is a good country; 
and if he tears it down as has been done in 
Russia, then darkness overwhelms the land 
and it is anarchy. So we know that man is 
the only force that can make things better, 
and when he builds a home and cities he 
realizes that there is a responsibilty from him 
to his loved ones to try to retain them in that 
same position to which he has brought them. 
If he were a savage roaming through the 
forest and getting all his living and depend¬ 
ing upon it entirely so long as he was here, 
then he would not need to recognize a re¬ 
sponsibility. Those of his tribe could take 
care of themselves because there is no family 
unit—he is only one of the tribe and therefore 
there is no responsibility, but just as soon as 
the man arrives at the proper intelligence he 
recognizes the necessity of a family unit, and 

231 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

just as soon as the family unit is established 
then there is a responsibility on the head of 
that family. Out of this responsibility has 
grown more progress of the world than out 
of anything else. Surely it is out of this very 
recognition that has grown the institution of 
life insurance. 

I know there is no need of me speaking 
about our profession and about its calling, 
and yet it does seem to me that we do not all 
see it as vividly as we ought to. Let me tell 
you about an illustration I had not long ago 
that brought to my mind the absolute neces¬ 
sity of life insurance stronger than I ever had 
it brought to me in my life. Until this inci¬ 
dent I am about to relate I thought I knew the 
life insurance business. I did, but I know it 
better now. I think I know as well as any¬ 
body that when a person becomes the head of 
his family and brings children into the world 
that he is responsible for those children until 
they are of age; that upon him rests the re¬ 
sponsibility that they have just as good ad¬ 
vantages as any of the children in the neigh¬ 
borhood. It is his duty to see that they have 
at least a common school education and a bet¬ 
ter one if he can give it to them. It is his 
duty to teach them the ways of the world. It 
is his duty to see that they are well fitted to 
cope with the world as far as it is possible for 

232 


RESPONSIBILITY TO OLD AGE 


him to see until they become self-supporting. 
I think I know that as well as any person, and 
then I think I know as well as any person the 
responsibility that rests upon a husband, the 
protection and care of his wife, not only dur¬ 
ing the period of his life but afterwards, if 
he should be called before she is. I know and so 
do you the many trials and tribulations that 
beset a wife left to take care of herself and 
make her own way in the world, and especially 
one who has not been at all familiar with in¬ 
vesting money. We know how all she has left 
to her can slip away without any good. And 
I think I know that situation as well as any¬ 
body, and I thought I knew that situation 
that comes with old age as well as anybody, 
but I found out long ago that I did not know 
as much about this as I thought I did. We 
know it is said that everybody is interested 
in a child; very few people are interested in a 
person of middle age; and no person is inter¬ 
ested in old age. It was Victor Hugo who 
said that, and when I read it it was forcible 
enough to draw my attention to it in a way 
that I put it down in my memorandum book 
and kept it, and I thought about it, but I cer¬ 
tainly did not realize the importance of it as 
I had it brought to my attention in a life ex¬ 
ample. 


233 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

Not many weeks ago I was in my old home 
in Kentucky. During my boyhood days in 
Kentucky there was a man who kept a store, 
a man whom everybody loved. He was a man 
who treated everybody fairly. He had built 
up a good business and he did a splendid busi¬ 
ness all the time, saved his money and was as 
well fixed financially as any one in the county, 
and was as well thought of. He had a good 
character and a good reputation. He was not 
a married man and had no family or persons 
dependent upon him. During my early boy¬ 
hood that man was known to me as Uncle 
Bob, and many a time Uncle Bob played with 
me and talked with me until he grew to be 
a part of my early existence. The many things 
that he did and said to me were an influence 
upon my life and I always remember him as 
a good man and one to whom I w r as indebted. 
He went along in his good way progressing 
and doing good, because he was a public spir¬ 
ited man and always did the things that 
tended to help the community. If there was 
any community thing to be done he was one of 
the leaders. Some fifteen years ago Uncle 
Bob was a man about sixty years of age. He 
still had his store and was going along very 
nicely. But some one came along one day 
and interested him in some mining stock to 
such an extent that he invested very heavily. 

234 


RESPONSIBILITY TO OLD AGE 

In following up his investment he lost almost 
all that he had and it is a peculiar coincidence 
that at the time of his loss he was taken down 
sick and was sick for many weeks. During 
that time a new store was started in the town 
and they took undue advantage of Uncle 
Bob. They took his trade and by the time he 
was able to get back to his store, more feeble 
than he had ever been before, his money was 
all gone, his health was all gone and his busi¬ 
ness was all gone. Uncle Bob had no life in¬ 
surance. 

i 

You have seen that old person who begins 
to slip into the decline, who is unsteady in his 
gait, so unsteady that he is back at the time 
of his early childhood. He is no more able to 
take care of himself than at that time. This 
was Uncle Bob’s condition at that time. He 
lived around with friends for a little while 
because he lost his store and had to close it, 
but after a while this saying of Victor Hugo’s 
began to prove itself that no person is inter¬ 
ested in old age—in a nice way they would 
suggest to Uncle Bob that he go some place 
else. The matter finally came to the atten¬ 
tion of an attorney in the town who was in 
about the same position with Uncle Bob that 
I was. He had been his adviser and his friend 
when he was a little boy, and he too felt he 
owed something to Uncle Bob, so he took it 

235 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


upon himself to go to him and talk with him 
about going to the county poor farm to spend 
the rest of his days. He put him in that frame 
of mind to go there not as a man who had 
come from the slums of the town but as a man 
who had lived an honest life and now when 
he was in his decline this was the best they 
had to offer him. So Uncle Bob went there. 
A few weeks ago when I was at my home I 
was told this story and I went to the poor farm 
to see Uncle Bob. There I saw a man seven¬ 
ty-five years of age who at one time had been 
one of the most important and prominent 
business men in the county, a man who had 
accumulated enough to keep him comfortably 
through all his years, and more too, and 
through whose bad judgment in a weak mom¬ 
ent had lost it all and gone back to the very 
beginning. 

But Uncle Bob was not bitter. Most every¬ 
body is bitter in that condition and has a right 
to be, but his was a philosophic mind. He was 
the same old Uncle Bob looking at things just 
like he used to with only a meager living for 
the rest of his days, with no comforts or lux¬ 
uries and with nothing to look forward to 
and with the full realization in his mind that 
all the ideals he had could never be realized; 
that he simply must sit with the inmates of 
the institution to wait for the day of dark- 


236 


RESPONSIBILITY TO OLD AGE 

ness to come. I thought then how different it 
might have been with Uncle Bob if he could 
have seen the last fifteen years of his life; 
if he could only have laid aside enough to have 
assured a pleasant old age. What a wonder¬ 
fully sweet character he would have been if 
some life insurance man had just done his 
duty! It was not until then that I saw the 
other side of life. I think I know it better 
now than I ever did before. It seems to me 
that nature does her very best to give us all 
that is coming to us. We find that nature will 
give us a living if we just give her a chance. 
Nature will give us luxuries if we put forth 
the effort, and nature will give us prominence 
if we will exert ourselves to that extent. 
Nature will pay the tribute if we will just let 
her. 

I think the finest tribute I ever read about 
being paid to any man was that tribute paid 
to the first white man who inhabited Cali¬ 
fornia, Father Juniperro Serra. He estab¬ 
lished the settlements on the coast of Cali¬ 
fornia and claimed the land in the name of 
the King of Spain. He spent his life there 
and gathered around him six thousand native 
Indians and made them the first tillers of the 
soil of California. When he was about sev¬ 
enty-five years of age he had given his entire 
life to the building up of early California. 


237 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

When he died history records the fact that 
all these simple native Indians hearing the 
bells toll knew their leader and friend was 
dead. All went to the mountains to pick the 
favorite flower of Father Juniperro, and in 
great arm fulls they brought these flowers 
back and placed them upon his grave. It was 
his favorite flower. Nature who had furn¬ 
ished these simple human beings furnished to 
them the tribute they paid to him that da^r 
and I think is the most beautiful of which I 
have ever read. 

We have gone through strenuous times in 
the past few years. So far as I am concerned 
I have tried to do so without complaining. It 
is the usual thing for man to complain about 
hardships that are placed upon him. It is 
usual for him to bewail his fate. But if he 
does that too much he becomes a complainer 
and he gets in that position where no one has 
any use for him and he comes to that point 
where he is nothing more than a failure. The 
very fact that man rules the world and is the 
only being upon the earth that has the sense 
of reason makes us in a position that a re¬ 
sponsibility rests upon us, a responsibility to 
ascertain as nearly as we can the conditions 
of things and to learn the things that will re¬ 
sult from certain causes and to look ahead 
and plan. It is given to man to do that and 

238 


RESPONSIBILITY TO OLD AGE 

hence the reason and basis and foundation 
for life insurance, and the reason for us ex¬ 
pecting certain results to come about if we 
have other conditions to deal with. 

In other words if we have a drought 
we know that our crops will be short. If 
we have a severe frost late in the spring 
we have learned to expect our fruit will 
be destroyed. We know if a crowd of peo¬ 
ple get together with one certain idea of 
accomplishing something we know that cer¬ 
tain idea will be accomplished. Whether 
it be the working of a mob or whether it 
be the loftiest kind of patriotism, we have 
learned to expect these things. Our rule on 
these things has come from nature; from the 
very nature that lies here at our feet today; 
from the nature that gave us all that we have; 
from the nature that makes us know that a 
seed will sprout into a tree, and that this tree 
will become a great sturdy oak, strong in its 
trunk and offering protection to anything and 
anybody that comes beneath its spreading 
boughs. We have learned to expect these 
things from nature. We know that from na¬ 
ture comes our ambition, that ambition that 
came to us from the generations gone before, 
that ambition that has taught us that we can 
take the sturdy oak v/e have seen grow and 
build ourselves a house and make of it a home 


239 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

to shelter our loved ones. And we know we 
can put over the door of that house built from 
nature’s own wood a vine, and we know that 
in the proper season the grapes will grow 
purple in the kiss of the autumn sun. We 
know that love comes from the ambition of a 
soul and we know if it does come in this way 
that a man will protect those he loves. 

So it is from nature that we learn our les¬ 
sons and it is very fitting we come back today 
to nature for a lesson, a lesson that means 
much to us, a lesson that tells us that what¬ 
ever we are or aspire to be must come from 
the rules that have been proven and demon¬ 
strated by nature, the simple lesson of nature 
in which you will find all the simple rules of 
life insurance. 


240 



3 


* 















MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT 
YOU HAVE 


I 




Making Good With What You Have 

The life and biography of any successful 
man in any calling would be a more eloquent 
address on this subject than any talk I could 
give with any amount of preparation, be¬ 
cause a man makes good in proportion to the 

way he uses the tools and instruments in his 
hands. Michael Angelo would have been a 
failure had he not used the brush and chisel. 
No matter how splendid his ideas and ideals 
were, if he had not taken advantage of his 
opportunity to put them into execution he 
never would have been the greatest sculptor 
and painter of the world. No man has ever 
risen to any height who has never gone above 
the average of his fellow man. Nothing has 
ever been accomplished by waiting for oppor¬ 
tunity and luck and all those things which 
are more or less a phantom. When v/e look 
around and see the people we deem successful 
in our own locality in our own horizon, we 
label them as the ones who have energy, am¬ 
bition and initiative, and who are continually 
going about from day to day not so much 
taking advantage of opportunity as making 
opportunity. If they find a certain condition 

245 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

of affairs to exist then they make themselves 
a part of whatever that affair is, and the 
tide carries them on to success. 

I said if I could read to you the biography 
of any successful man it would be a much 
more eloquent address on this subject, and I 
repeat it. If I could just tell you the life of 
the great Lincoln, it would certainly be com¬ 
plete on this subject. We talk and think of 
Lincoln as inspired, and yet we go back to his 
childhood and we find him born of lowly 
parents in the very lowest kind of poverty, 
and into his young life seemed to come more 
of sorrow than the average boy has, and yet 
Lincoln had that ambition to succeed which 
made him walk 40 miles to borrow a law book 
and read over a hundred pages of it returning 
home. That was taking advantage of what 
he had. Not only did he study at night by 
the dim light of his grease lamp but he studied 
at every opportunity that he had. He had no 
teachers to give him that broad learning that 
is taught in colleges and schools; he had a 
living to earn and he must get what learning 
and education he could as he went along. 
Step by step as he went along he improved 
his condition, and as he improved his condi¬ 
tion he reached out and helped his fellow 
man and made him better all the time, and 
this progress went on to the last and when he 

246 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

reached the height to which an American can 
go—yes, the height to which no other Amer¬ 
ican has since gone—he was still the simple, 
plain man he was in his boyhood, realizing 
that to accomplish anything he must turn his 
hands to the things that were of the present, 
that he must do his share and never shirk. 

If I could tell you about Andrew Carnegie, 
who grew to be the greatest manufacturer in 
the world and one of the greatest financiers 
in the world, if I could just tell you his life’s 
history, it would be all that would be needed 
on this subject. He, too, was poor, as poor as 
a boy could be, and $1.50 per week was mighty 
big wages for him when he started out to help 
keep the family; when he had to come out of 
school and sacrifice his education in order to 
help the family. Each step of his progress 
occasioned gain because he took hold of con¬ 
ditions as they existed and made something of 
himself along with the conditions that pre¬ 
sented themselves. When he was a messenger 
boy in the telegraph office one of his chief 
objects, even at that young age, was to form 
close acquaintance with just as many prom¬ 
inent business men as he possibly could, and 
manv of those same men in his after life served 
him and were associated with him in great 
business ventures. When he was asked to be 
the private secretary of the Division Superin- 

247 



THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


tendent of the Pennsylvania railroad, he was 
ready for the job. He was present when 
the first telegraph instruments began to 
take their place in the business affairs of 
this country and he was the first to realize 
the necessity of being able to take messages 
by ear and was the first person to ac¬ 
complish this feat. So he was well prepared 
for the position of private secretary when 
it was offered to him. And as this private 
secretary, when he was only about 20 years 
old, when his boss was away and a wreck 
and a washout tied up the entire division, 
he was well enough prepared that he could 
take hold of it and run the entire division 
and straighten it out before the boss re¬ 
turned. Such action called for immediate 
dismissal. Assuming that kind of authority 
at that time was the grossest kind of violation 
of the rules of the railroad, but he made no 
mistake and instead of being fired he was pro¬ 
moted. And as he went on up and became 
the head and the largest owner of the greatest 
business in the world, the steel business, he 
still maintained his simple way of doing busi¬ 
ness. The rigid rules he had learned during 
his boyhood still served him just as well when 
he was at the top of his success as they did 
when he was just beginning. He never lost 
his feeling for his fellow men; he never lost 


248 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

his sentiment; he never lost his energy and 
ambition, and his determination to keep posted 
and to study; he never realized he had reached 
the top. 

And in fact, he had not. He had just gone 
higher than anybody else had gone. There is 
no top. There is no way to determine that a 
person has reached the top and that no one 
will yet go higher, and it is well that this is 
so. Ambitions like Carnegie’s results in great 
good to humanity. No man can make himself 
alone; success must be made with the approval 
of the people. In fact he must be carried on 
to success on the shoulders of men and women. 
Great things cannot be done without resulting 
in good to humanity and it is those results 
which make reputation and that reputation 
which carries on to success. 

Probably Mr. Carnegie carried more 
young men forward to success than any other 
individual we can think of. His simple life 
and his method of getting close to his em¬ 
ployes, in fact being one of them, made his life 
serve as a model to many a young man and 
gave him that incentive to go on and make 
good for himself. One of those men was 
Charles M. Schwab, and a history of his life 
would certainly meet all the requirements of 
this subject of mine. He had very little with 
which to make good when he started his 

249 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

career—just a big, red-headed, freckled faced 
boy, driving a hack for $3.00 a week. He 
drove the hack well, and when he went from 
there into the grocery store he did that job 
well, and when he went to the steel mill as 
water boy he served the very best he could in 
that capacity. Whenever he had a job he 
made good in that job. He took advantage of 
everything he had at his command to build 
himself, and he was always preparing himself 
so that he was always ready for the next job 
that came to him. Having taken his boss, 
Andrew Carnegie, as his example and ideal 
he went from job to job, step by step, until it 
came time when Mr. Carnegie was old and 
was not so active as he had previously been, 
and it was necessary that somebody take his 
place. His water boy had so fitted himself 
that he took the place of the boss and took the 
chair at the head of the great steel industry, 
the greatest not only of this country, but of 
the world. At every step of his advancement 
he had made good with what he had in his 
hands, from the time he began to drive the 
hack clear up to the present time; he was a 
success as the hack driver; he was a success 
as the water boy; and he was a success as 
foreman of the steel mill; success as manager 
of the mill and a success as a salesman on the 
road, in fact he was the greatest salesman so 

250 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

far as total sales were concerned who ever 
took contracts. He was a success as the man¬ 
ager of the steel industry and now he is a suc¬ 
cess as the chairman of the board and chief 
owner of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. 
We all know the success he made at the head 
of the ship-building industry during the war. 

The point I want to make is that you may 
take any successful man and follow through 
his career and you find that no matter what 
has been his position and his station and op¬ 
portunity, he has made good day by day with 
whatever he had at his command, whether it 
was very little or plenty, whether it was a 
very little job or a big one. The principle is 
exactly the same. If we could look over the 
failures and the average men, we would find 
that instead of making good in their little jobs 
they are just getting by, just making a liv¬ 
ing. Every man is endowed with certain tal¬ 
ents and with a certain capacity when he is 
born, and he become an under average, or 
an average, or an above average man, just in 
proportion as he develops that God-given 
ability of his. I am not one of those persons 
who believes that every man can be trained to 
do every kind of work or fit in every kind of 
business. I do not believe that, and I am quite 
sure that I would be a failure in many kinds 
of businesses. One man is fitted with a mind 


251 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


and ability to work along financial lines and 
can be a banker; one man is fitted for a sales¬ 
man, he knows human nature and he has 
energy and ability and he can take advantage 
of his opportunities; another man is fitted for 
research work, and it is his great desire to go 
to Egypt and excavate the ruins that date 
back into the early centuries of the world. He 
digs up the things that have been buried for 
centuries, and by his peculiar training of mind 
and his ability along that line he is able to 
tell us things that mean much to the present 
day world, and he thereby becomes a great 
man in his calling. Just so is it in every kind 
of business; there are only a few who succeed 
and become well known as successes in busi¬ 
ness, but every one of these few are men 

and women who have taken hold of what thev 

«/ 

had at hand and molded it into something 
worth while. 

We can look up at the heavens at night 
and know that astronomers have counted more 
than two hundred million stars, every one of 
them a little world in itself, and we know that 
there is a universal law that governs the 
course and the action of each one of those 
stars. We know that in the great laying out 
of the universe that this law was made and 
does exist and we know that the action of those 
stars and those planets has a great influence 

252 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

on our own planet; we know that the sun and 
moon make the tides in our oceans, and we 
have learned that those tides have much to 
do with the affairs of men; we know how the 
action of these planets bear upon the crops 
and the fruits and the different things that 
are grown, and we also know as we gaze on 
the heavens that there are stars which get 
out of place, stars which disobey the universal 
law, and we know that when one of these 
stars gets out of place it causes a jam in the 
trend of the heavenly bodies which may be 
looked upon by us as a great phenomenon. 
So long as every one of them stays in its 
place and continues to do so, there is no 
trouble, but just as surely as one varies from 
its place then there is trouble, and the other 
bodies in the universe have to pay for that 
trouble. 

When we look on this and know it, we 
know that it is not any different than the 
actions of the nations of the earth. We look 
over the map of the earth and we see nations 
designated by boundary lines and each nation 
filled with people peculiar to the nation, and 
looking at them as a whole they are no dif¬ 
ferent than the heavenly bodies which are 
governed by the universal law, and they too 
are governed by nature’s laws. Back at the 
beginning of time we find these races on the 

253 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

earth, and there have grown certain laws for 
the conduct of these nations, and just so long 
as they stay within their boundaries there is 
no trouble; just so long as they take advantage 
of what they have, there is no difficulty. But 
let one of them get out of line and we have 
the same kind of trouble there as with the 
heavenly bodies. We saw this happen with 
Germany. When Germany crossed over into 
Belgium she was out of place, and all the 
other nations of the earth had to pay for her 
infraction. 

This same law applies to the universe; the 
same law applies to the individual. There 
are certain things to be done and certain 
courses to take to reach success, but if the 
opposite course is taken or different things 
done then it means failure. We have learned 
what these courses are; we have learned of 
certain kinds of action; we know what to 
expect from the elements, and the man who 
takes advantage of these things and works 
accordingly, meets with success. We know 
that during the year we are to have four 
seasons and that they will be varied according 
to the actions of the universal bodies, some 
will be good and some will be bad. Every man 
who tills the soil knows that he cannot expect 
a good crop every year; if he is raising apples 
he knows that he must expect a failure every 

254 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

so often, but he learns to take advantage of 
the seasons, he learns to take advantage of 
the fat years, he learns to prepare for the time 
when there will not be plenty. In doing so he 
makes himself a success. 

Joseph made a great reputation for him¬ 
self by going down into Egypt and buying 
corn during the seven years of plenty and 
storing it away against the seven years that 
he had learned would come along when there 
would not be plenty, and all that gave him 
that reputation was foresight and judgment. 
The people of this country have learned that 
there will be hard times and that these hard 
times will come and that we must expect them. 
We also have learned that prosperity can 
come to this country of ours very quickly, and 
that adversity can come just as quickly as 
prosperity. We know that in 1907 when the 
country was full of all of the things that make 
success, that almost immediately there was 
a depression that tied up the financial in¬ 
terests of the country, and although it was 
only temporary it did great harm. During 
recent years we have seen prosperity greater 
than we have ever dreamed of existing in this 
country, prosperity that came on gradually 
and existed for a long time, and though ad¬ 
versity set in and caused much trouble and is 
still causing much trouble, we know it is 

255 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


nothing more than what we expected and 
talked about before it came, and yet there are 
many of our people who are still grumbling 
and complaining today, forgetting the years 
of prosperity, and are talking about the lean 
years which we have now. 

In fact if we analyze the situation, the 
present time is as good or better than the 
average times we had before the war. If we 
had poverty and suffering caused by crop 
failure, if we had to contend with things 
European countries have to contend with, we 
could well talk about hard times, but today 
our merchants are solvent, our farmers as a 
class are solvent, our banks are the strongest 
they have ever been; the finances of this coun¬ 
try are as solvent as they possibly can be 
made. We have every reason to be thankful 
for the way things have adjusted themselves. 
They have come back faster than we had any 
right to expect and we should not grumble 
because we are not able to do the big business 
we did during the war times. We should not 
desire to do that kind of business. The nor¬ 
mal business today is better than the abnor¬ 
mal business which we previously had. The 
trouble with us is just the same as it always 
has been with human beings, no matter what 
we expect, no matter what we have been 
taught must come, there are too many of us 


256 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

who do not prepare ourselves for it. Many 
men have to be driven to this preparation 
before they can be a success. If Ben Hur 
had not been a galley slave and compelled to 
work day in and day out at the oars he would 
not have been in condition to win the chariot 
race. 

The greatest financial firms of this coun¬ 
try had handled national and international 
affairs to such an extent that they knew what 
to expect in the readjustment, and as a con¬ 
sequence we have not had great financial 
failures but things have worked along in such 
a fine way that everything has adjusted itself 
in fine fashion. The reason for it is that 
these people had gotten things ready for what 
they knew would come. There are many life 
insurance men and agencies who realized that 
the big business would not always keep up 
and that they must make preparation for that 
time when business would be different, they 
must think about conservation of their busi¬ 
ness, they must think about the way of get¬ 
ting new business when business would be 
hard to get. They prepared things so that 
they would be ready for the readjustment, 
and when the readjustment came they had so 
well adjusted themselves that their business 
kept up. We have agencies who have man¬ 
aged that way and it speaks volumes for the 

257 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


manager. It seems to be the older men who 
grumble and complain and who do not get re¬ 
sults when any abnormal condition comes 
along. They have grown to be old men and 
they know that there will be Spring and that 
Summer will follow Spring and that Fall will 
follow the Summer and that Y/inter will come, 
and yet every one of the seasons is out of line 
for them and they cannot get business on ac¬ 
count of the peculiar season. 

I do not know what the life insurance man 
would do if he should wake up some morn¬ 
ing and find his weather excuse and his road 
excuse were gone; he would be in a terrible 
dilemma. If the Lord could take these two 
excuses away He would do a wonderful thing 
for the life insurance business. There are too 
many agency managers who do not teach their 
agent that if he is working in the country 
and the roads are impassable that he should 
look forward to that very condition and pre¬ 
pare his work for the town. It is the man¬ 
ager's duty to teach the agents just these 
kinds of things. You have under you men 
who are great successes, average men and 
under average men, and as managers it is 
your duty to bring these men up to as high a 
point of success as possible. If that were not 
your duty and that were not required of you 
then there would be little use of having a 


258 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

manager. For the very fact that you have 
been considered to be a leader you have been 
given this position of taking other men for¬ 
ward to success. Our business is just a little 
bit different than most any other business. 
We realize that it is necessary for the life in¬ 
surance man to be a well posted man, for him 
to have education and training, for him to 
develop judgment and initiative. A lawyer 
can go to a law school and prepare himself 
for his profession and it is necessary that he 
do so; a doctor can do the same thing, so can 
a banker, an implement man, a hardware 
dealer. All these kinds of institutions have 
schools for the training of their men and when 
an agent of one of these institutions goes out 
on the road he has a certain list of customers 
in his territory to whom he can go as pros¬ 
pects, and that is his limit. He travels day 
by day and reports day by day to his house 
and he is checked up specifically on the things 
he has to do. In this regard he is different 
from the life insurance man. 

All these kinds of institutions have schools 
for training their men and they can train 
them specifically just how to sell and how to 
take advantage of the conditions in their own 
selling market, but the education of the life 
insurance man is largely up to himself. It 
is not a specific course that he can take as the 

259 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


doctor or the lawyer can, and it is not prac¬ 
tical in our business that he do so. If he was 
taught by theory, by the time he got into the 
field he would have forgotten the things that 
are essential. But on account of the peculiar¬ 
ity of our business it is necessary that the 
education come in connection with field work. 
Even the schools which have taken up life 
insurance salesmanship depend upon the field 
work to a very great extent, and that prob¬ 
ably is the most important part of their work. 
In our course of salesmanship we have de¬ 
signed it so that it is given in connection with 
the field work so that the agent can earn his 
living at the same time he is getting his in¬ 
struction. The manager has a part to play 
in this education and he should play it well. 
He should follow up this course, as it means 
just as much to him as it does to the student. 
It is preparing for him a better man and he 
should follow it up closely and assist in every 
way he can in the training and education of 
the individual agent. 

Your agent out in the part of your ter¬ 
ritory is his own boss, every person in that 
locality is his prospect, he does not have a 
specific duty to perform on which he has to 
report to you every day, he does not have a 
certain definite list of prospects on whom he 
must call and give you a report each day, but 


260 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

he must manage himself and we know that 
very few people are good managers for them¬ 
selves; therefore, it is your duty to keep in 
very close touch with your agents and know 
just how they are working. You can very 
soon learn just what to expect of every agent. 
You will find that every so often a certain 
man needs to be toned up, that he needs your 
attention, that he needs you to call upon him 
and get him out of the rut; probably he is in 
the habit of getting into a rut of a set can¬ 
vass which is stiff and stale and he needs you 
to tell him some new ideas. You know there 
are many agents who will not study from a 
book and that they get almost nothing from it 
if they do, but will absorb from an individual 
what they need to make them go on and do a 
better business. So that is the reason you 
are in your position as manager and that is 
the reason you are required to keep in touch 
with your men and just in proportion as you 
know and manage your men that is the pro¬ 
portion which you gain success as a manager. 
It was necessary that our financial men be 
ready for the readjustment period just as 
much as it was necessary for them to be ready 
for the great expansion which came before. 
It was necessary for the life insurance man 
to prepare himself to meet both of these con¬ 
ditions. It was more necessary for the man- 


261 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

ager to do so because he was directing other 
men, and it is most necessary today that you 
know your men if you expect to make a suc¬ 
cess. It is necessary that you know what to 
expect from them; that you have conditions 
so well fixed in your mind that you can make 
your plans and not have them upset by finding 
different conditions than you had theoretically 
planned. 

Men are not tested during periods of pros¬ 
perity but the real test is made when advers¬ 
ity and hard conditions exist throughout the 
land. It is in such a test that a man takes 
advantage of the opportunity and is ready 
when it comes. That proves his success. And 
we know because of the fact that there are 
such few successes in proportion to the num¬ 
ber of people in the business that most people 
are not ready for the opportunity. Webster 
would not have had such a great reputation 
had he not made his great reply to Hayne and 
this reply which covered some seven days of 
speaking was made without preparation. 
And when some one talked to him and mar¬ 
veled at the fact that he was able to make 
such a speech covering such a long time and 
delivered in such a splendid fashion, he re¬ 
plied he had been more than 30 years in prep¬ 
aration for that speech. In other words he 
was ready when the opportunity presented 

262 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

Itself. A man gets paid in this world not for 
the knowledge he possesses but for the knowl¬ 
edge he uses. Most of us are only one-half 
efficient, and yet we are masters of our own 
fate. If a condition presents itself to you as 
manager and you have never thought about 
the facts that make up the situation, then you 
are in the dark and your agent very quickly 
realizes that you do not know any more about 
it than he does, and you are then on a par 
with him. 

The manager who thinks out the situation 
and knows what will come up and knows what 
to expect from his men under contract, that is 
the man who is taking advantage of what he 
has in hand and that is the man who will 
make good. He is indeed making good with 
what he has. He is just thinking on the sub¬ 
jects which he has at hand. He knows he has 
a certain territory and he knows that ter¬ 
ritory should produce certain business and 
that he has certain men with which to make 
that production. He has these certain things 
in hand and he will make good or fail just as 
he uses the tools at his command. In a 
machine shop are many machines, some of 
them of high power and of great capacity, but 
most of them are of a cheaper quality and 
less capacity, average capacity. The invest¬ 
ment -would prohibit having all of the best 

263 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

type, hence the firm must have the best fore¬ 
man to be had to get results from the shop as 
a whole. 

When would the ships ever go into har¬ 
bor if they did not take advantage of the 
tides? There are very few harbors in the 
world in which the great ships of the ocean 
do not have to wait for a high tide in which to 
go to dock for a landing. They know when to 
expect those tides and are ready for them with 
a full head of steam and when the tide comes 
they make their landing. But to the casual 
observer or to the average person no thought 
is given to the fact that the schedule has to 
be arranged according to the time when land¬ 
ing can be made. Navigators have learned 
more than any one else that “time and tide 
wait for no man,” and isn’t that just as true 
in the life insurance business as it is in any 
other kind of business? If we wait until the 
opportunity is past and gone there is little use 
of us trying to be more than average men. 
It is to the very great credit of a manager to 
so instruct and train men under him that they 
will progress to the point of being managers 
themselves. It speaks well for his training, 
it is the evidence, the fruit of his ability. He 
has indeed taken a broad view of his business. 
He has taken advantage of the tide and made 
of himself a great success. 


264 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

Every man has a fixed standard, that is 
he has a minimum standard which nature has 
fixed for him. He can go just as far above 
that as he has ambition and energy to de¬ 
velop himself. We see in a forest one tree tall 
and straight and splendid, towering above the 
other trees in the locality. It has just made 
of itself more of a success than the other 
trees. We see the same kind of an example 
among men. In your dealings from day to 
day and year to year you fix your financial 
standard with your banker; according to your 
reputation he has decided how much money 
he will loan to you and thereby fixes your 
credit according to a certain amount. He 
knows what your capacity is and what your 
reputation is for making good on your prom¬ 
ises. He knows just what results can be 
expected from you in a year. You, in your 
dealings in the life insurance business as 
managers, have fixed your standard with 
your company. Your company knows just 
what it can expect from you. It knows what 
your reputation is; it knows how well you 
make good on your promises; it knows wheth¬ 
er you are the kind of a man who comes into 
a conference and promises millions of busi¬ 
ness for the year and goes back home and 
forgets about the promise. Your company 
knows what results to expect from you. You 


265 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


know what kind of ability you have, so does 
your company; you know how energetically 
you try to develop that ability; so does your 
company; you know when you make a prom¬ 
ise what you are going to do, whether you 
mean it or not, but your company does not 
know that. It does know what your territory 
is worth to it; it does know, according to 
your ability and according to your agency 
force and according to your record, about 
what you should produce as a reasonable 
amount and that amount it fixes as your quota 
for the year. Your quota is what it thinks 
of you, that is what it thinks you are worth. If 
you fall down in making it and do so without 
a good reason, then it knows that it has over 
estimated you. If you go past your quota you 
will prove yourself a bigger and better man 
than it had estimated you. These quotas are 
reasonable, they are fixed so you can make 
them without question. If you lay down on 
the job, if you conclude you must take things 
a little more easily than you have been, then 
your company must suffer in its loss of busi¬ 
ness and you must suffer because you have 
not upheld your reputation. 

Your simplest task in all of your business 
should be a divine one, because it is a part of 
your chosen work; and you know that suc¬ 
cess and victory will crown your efforts. You 


266 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

know that you are working for just those 
things and you know that every task that 
comes to your hands whether it be build¬ 
ing up one of your agents, whether it be get¬ 
ting him back into line and getting him going 
again, or whether it be putting on a new agent, 
or teaching a new man your renewal system, 
you know it is a part of your work and that 
it should be a pleasure and that is the reason 
that every part of your business should be 
looked up to as divine work. It is sacred to 
you. Your reputation is about as sacred a 
thing as you have in the world and should be 
very carefully guarded by you. 

If there were no hazards and no uncer¬ 
tainties, there would be no need for life insur¬ 
ance. If the ideal condition pictured by cer¬ 
tain persons could exist so that there would 
be no want or no distress on account of lack 
of the necessities of life, there would be no 
use for the life insurance man. The farmer 
can plant a grain of corn and he knows that 
it will come up corn; he can plant a rose in 
his garden and he knows that it will come up 
to be a rose; he can plant a honeysuckle vine 
at his cottage door and he knows that it will 
grow to be a fine honeysuckle that will cover 
the door; but no man, whether he be wise or 
ignorant, can look into the cradle and predict 
what will grow forth. No man can give his 

267 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

child a chart for three score years and ten 
because it has not been given to a human be¬ 
ing to see into the life of a fellow human being. 
A mother looks into the cradle upon her baby 
as upon a book whose lids are closed; she 
knows not how many years will be allotted to 
him or what station in life he will take. It is 
these uncertainties and these hazards that 
make the necessity of life insurance. It is 
these uncertainties that make your calling and 
my calling and it is because they deal with 
young lives and human beings and careers 
that our business is such a sacred one that we 
should be prouder of it than any other business 
in the world. 

There is no business that deals so close¬ 
ly, and if I may say, sacredly, with man 
as does the life insurance business. When 
we see the old man who has grown old in his 
allotted career go forth into the driving storm 
without the necessities and comforts of life 
we know that he suffers a broken heart, not 
because he has been uncrowned and unsuccess¬ 
ful in business ventures but because he is un¬ 
cared for. Life holds no honor and no gift 
that will dry the tears for him who feels that 
he has drifted beyond the care of his fellow 
man, if he has found himself alone without 
comfort and without pleasure and without 

268 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

necessities and without friends and relatives. 
He realizes that no matter what he may have 
attained, no matter what he may have lost in 
the business world, this sorrow in his last 
days is worse than all. But we know that 
our business is the business which does more 
to guard against just such scenes as this 
than any other business of men. We know 
that if we can induce a man to protect prop¬ 
erly the late years of his life with life insur¬ 
ance, that he will go through to the end of 
his existence with a calmness that makes the 
world better. We know that his faith will 
be firm in all of the things that makes men 
kinder and better. We know that his faith 
will be almost the faith of Job who was sorely 
tried by bodily affliction and was also tried 
by the advice of his friends, but his faith held 
true to the course. 

We can say that worry is an American 
fault. Because of the fact that we are travel¬ 
ing at such a fast gait we do not have the 
patience that the people of other countries 
have, neither for business nor for living. It 
takes more to entertain the American people 
than any other people in the world. They 
have traveled, they have seen their own 
country and the other countries and conse¬ 
quently their needs are greater than the peo¬ 
ple of other countries, and yet the American 

269 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

people through their ambition and foresight 
and good judgment make good with what they 
have as well as the people of any other nation. 
Possibly we would have more comforts and 
more pleasure if we did not have the speed 
craze which we have; if we had more pa¬ 
tience, if we had more endurance, if we 
were satisfied with less than we demand. But 
we are blessed with a country that is broad 
in its acres, whose fields are fertile, whose 
crops are abundant and we require too much 
from nature, as well as from man. Necessity 
is still the mother of invention. The Belgian 
with his farm of a few acres and the neces¬ 
sity of making his existence on that farm 
makes the farm produce many times what our 
farms produce. Away up in the mountains of 
Switzerland the people who live there have 
to make their living with what they have. 
There is no level land but every mountain is 
made to produce. With patience and out of 
necessity the Swiss family has plenty. His 
mountain farm is a series of terraces, each 
terrace usually not more than 10 feet wide 
with a stone wall below it to keep it from 
washing away, and on each of these terraces 
he plants his grain and his grapes, and from 
these terraces he gets his existence. The 
country is known as a country which has 
money and the individuals are thrifty. It is 

270 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

true that they are not rich according to our 
standard and there is not the distinction of 
class in Switzerland but the people are com¬ 
fortable and more than all they are contented 
and happy. They give themselves up more to 
pleasure and mingling together than any other 
class of people. And are we able to say that 
they do not get more out of life than the rest 
of us? 

Away up in the top of the Alps in Italy, 
and in France, the only way the people have 
of making a living is by raising olives. Noth¬ 
ing else grows up there and all of the moun¬ 
tains are covered with olive trees. They have 
been planted and are cultivated in the rocky 
soil and some person has had the patience to 
keep them alive until they could get started 
in the soil so that they could grow to be trees. 
Many of them are only little twisted trees 
and yet they produce and give a living to peo¬ 
ple, and these people who have had the 
patience and courage to make this means of 
existence are a splendid example of those who 
make good with what they have. They seem 
happier and more contented even though they 
do not have the luxuries and comforts that we 
have. The American farmer does not com¬ 
pare with any of these. He is too far ad¬ 
vanced in this country to compare with any 
of them, but we have learned in America to 

271 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


know that every joy has a corresponding sor¬ 
row and we know that if we have all of these 
things with which we are blessed that there is 
a corresponding sorrow that may come to ns 
to upset it and hence the mission of the life 
insurance man. Yes, this is the reason the 
life insurance man should try at all times to 
make good with what he has. If he has a 
little bit of territory and he is only a personal 
producer he ought to try to make good with 
what he has in hand. If he is an agency man¬ 
ager then he should try to make good with 
what he has. The point that I want to make 
is that every life insurance man should see a 
vision of what his duty is and then he should 
make good on what those duties are. If he is 
an individual producer, he knows that the 
more people he sees the larger number of ap¬ 
plications he will get. The manager should 
know that also, but in addition to that the 
manager should know that education and 
training will help him to get more and larger 
applications and that is where his duty lies. 

The greatest lesson for the life insurance 
man or for any man to learn is to adapt him¬ 
self and to adjust himself to conditions as 
they are. If conditions are in a certain state 
they require certain actions on his part. If 
there is great prosperity in the country, then 
his work must be along lines to meet that con- 


272 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

dition; if there is adversity, then he should 
adjust himself and work to meet the condi¬ 
tions at that time; if things are wrong it is 
his duty to do what he can to help right them. 
We know that the action of every individual 
is a check upon every other individual. We 
know that when people first began to be gov¬ 
erned by law's that this condition was brought 
about. If this were not true and every man 
acted for himself according to his own wishes 
we would have anarchy. We know that a 
few years ago people began to think about 
incomes for themselves, our cities began to 
be more thickly populated, our country had 
seen hard times come along and affect it, and 
hence our people who had not been much used 
to those things began to think about some 
kind of protection to take care of themselves 
and those dependent upon them at all haz¬ 
ards; and then they thought about incomes, 
and life insurance companies began to go in¬ 
to the matter and every life insurance man 
in the country began to talk income policies; 
they became popular, and by that very act he 
adjusted himself to conditions. The demands 
of the public were for incomes and he sup¬ 
plied that demand. 

Jl. 

During the past four years every busi¬ 
ness man has been thinking about business 
insurance, insurance to protect his business 

273 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

and his credit, and the life insurance com¬ 
panies supplied his demand and every life 
insurance agent has learned the need of 
corporation and business insurance and has 
sold it and has done his part to protect 
the businesses of the country. In that 
way he was taking advantage of the oppor¬ 
tunity that presented itself and was using 
the tools that were laid at his hands. This 
was adapting himself to conditions and mak¬ 
ing those conditions conform to his business. 
The life insurance man who thinks and plans 
and is really progressive meets all conditions 
as they arise. He knows, as the great Lincoln 
knew, that you can not fool all of the people 
all of the time. He knows that part of the 
people may be affected by certain conditions 
part of the time so that he can not so readily 
sell them life insurance, but he, too, knows 
that all of the people are not going to be af¬ 
fected all of the time. Hence he knows that 
if one class of people are affected in some way, 
making it hard to sell life insurance, that he 
can turn to some other class and keep up his 
production. He does not lay down and whine 
just simply because some class is pessimistic. 
He knows that people have to live, and that 
during hard times children are born and that 
their parents have the same responsibilties 
and that people die and get old and need pro- 

274 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

tection, and he knows that no matter what the 
conditions are that people will not forget their 
duty to those depending upon them. 

I think the most important qualification 
for a life insurance man, no matter in what 
position he is, is to have a vision of his busi¬ 
ness and his territory. If he does that he will 
know what conditions exist, he will know what 
is required of him, he will anticipate condi¬ 
tions whether they are good or bad and will 
arrange to take advantage of them. This rule 
is true of every kind of salesmanship, and no 
matter what kind of salesmanship, the suc¬ 
cessful man is the one who thinks ahead and 
who prepares himself so that he can meet con¬ 
ditions as they really are and who does not try 
to meet every kind of conditions with the same 
kind of argument. We know that it is the 
unusual ideas that attract people, and we also 
know that there is very little that is abso¬ 
lutely new in the life insurance business. We 
know that we can take old ideas and adapt 
them to new conditions, but it is necessary for 
us to realize those new conditions. Recently 
I heard of a fertilizer salesman who always 
carries a camera with him to photograph 
crops of the farmers who use his fertilizer 
and in calling on his prospects he would take 
out the photographs and show them the re¬ 
sults of the fertilizer which he had to sell; 


275 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

and one time I knew of a stove salesman who 
learned to cook so that he could demonstrate 
to the cooking classes and to the housewife 
just how to use the stove. Every person to¬ 
day who sells office equipment has studied 
office systems so that he knows not only the 
cabinet he has to sell but what goes in it and 
how it should be used. Our own representa¬ 
tives working in farming communities take 
along with them a helper who can take the 
farmer’s place so that his work will go on and 
leave the farmer free to talk life insurance. 
All these things are adjusting themselves to 
conditions and meeting them. 

You know if you have an opportunity 
whereby you can get a prospect’s attention on 
the question of life insurance and present it 
to him from just a little bit different angle 
so that it appeals to him in a new light that 
you will sell him in nine cases out of ten. That 
is just taking advantage of conditions as they 
exist. Probably not very many fully realize 
the great sales talk demonstrated in An¬ 
thony’s oration over Caesar’s body. If you 
want to benefit yourself more than you 
have been benefited previously go and get this 
oration, which is on two phonograph records, 
and just sit down and listen to them and you 
will have a different idea of this oration and 
of salesmanship. Caesar had been murdered 

276 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

by traitors who were going to take advantage 
of him being out of the way; Anthony his 
friend secured permission to talk at Caesar’s 
funeral. When they gave permission they 
thought him harmless. The mob which had 
gathered was absolutely opposed to him but 
he delivered his oration so diplomatically and 
so carefully that before he was half way 
through they were on his side and were de¬ 
manding the death of the traitors. You will 
be benefited more than you can imagine by 
just listening to these two records. They are 
made by E. H. Sothern who is one of the 
greatest Shakespearian actors today. 

The point I am trying to make is that for 
the past three years we have had unusual 
times. First they were so very prosperous 
that they were unusual. Prosperity was easy 
to meet because the agent who did not get so 
lazy that he would not see people could not 
help but get business. And then the reverse 
came when it was necessary to use all of our 
arguments so as to keep up our production, 
and coming right on the heels of such easy 
times this was hard to do. But I want to say 
to you that any person who is big enough to 
be a manager of a life insurance agency must 
expect all of these things and must prepare 
for them, and he is a good manager or not 
just as he does prepare for these things, as he 

277 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

looks ahead and anticipates them. It is no 
credit to you if conditions lay at your hand and 
you do not use them. It is certainly no credit 
to you if you have agents who need attention 
who are draggling along or who are making a 
failure of themselves, for you to just let them 
get along the best way they can, but it is your 
duty to see that these conditions are remedied 
in your agency. Know the condition in each 
locality and of each man who works for you, 
help him make good, tell him how to work, go 
and see him every little while whether he 
requests it or not, keep closely in touch with 
him, help him to be a bigger man, and do not 
forget that the fellowship of our business is 
the real fuel that makes the steam; that the 
fellowship that exists in your agency brands 
your agency a success or failure. 

If your agency is united and eager to see 
the agency a success, to see you a success as 
manager, then it is a success. Without fel¬ 
lowship among all the agents of your agency 
this cannot exist and fellowship can only exist 
when you perform your duty and create that 
fellowship and when you give your co-opera¬ 
tion in return for the co-operation given you. 
Only when every individual does his part will 
you have that successful agency. You will 
only have that condition exist when you have 
taken the leadership and when you have done 

278 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

your part, not one half of your part, but all 
of it, and have anticipated for these men who 
are not as big men as you are the conditions 
which will arise and prepare them for it. 
Prepare them so they can meet the conditions; 
only when you have thought for them ahead 
of the times and only when you have helped 
them and when they have joined hands with 
each other and with you, when this takes place, 
then you have done your duty and your actions 
are a great credit to you. 

The Empire of Germany grew to be a great 
country, one of the greatest in the world, be¬ 
cause her people were using what they had 
at hand to build the Empire. They built well 
in science, they built well in music, they built 
well in the manufacturing of articles, and 
they built well in many other ways, but their 
militarism made them fail because they let it 
overshadow everything else. One time France 
was a great country and bid fair to rule the 
entire world, but there came a time when she 
did not take advantage of her opportunities, 
did not use what she had at hand, and she 
dragged along as a failure. And so it is with 
other countries and other nations of the earth. 
They have come up or down just as they have 
used the things they had at hand with which 
they could make good and with which they 
could build and build solidly. Nations are no 


279 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

different than people. During the great war 
we took advantage of what we had at hand 
and this country prospered and prospered 
greatly, and this is true nothwithstanding the 
fact that we raised and sent on to Europe four 
millions of men to help fight a world war. 

During this period, in business, we used 
what we had at hand. The nations of Europe 
also used what they had at hand during that 
time but that was confined to the necessities 
and needs of war and not to business, so while 
we prospered during that time they did not. 
Since the war a condition has existed which is 
very creditable to the nations, which is very 
creditable to the people of the world. Every¬ 
body seems to look upon war in a different 
light than they ever did before. The people 
of the earth seem to want to use what they 
have at their command for business and per¬ 
sonal success and not for national warfare, 
so we have the great Peace Conference that is 
being held in America and we have the great 
trading arrangements that are beginning to 
be made between nations. Whether or not 
out of the Peace Conference will come an 
agreement that will forever end war, we do 
know that it will do some good, that it will 
be a betterment and we do know that out 
of our trade agreements there will come 
those conditions which will make more pros- 

280 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

perity and better conditions, and we do 
know that in ail of this life insurance as an 
institution is not forgotten. We know that it 
did much toward financing the war, we know 
that it has kept many families together since 
the war; we know that the Government re¬ 
sorted to the institution and principles of life 
insurance as the one salvation, as a protection 
against the calamity of war. 

And so we have seen during the readjust¬ 
ment period both nations and individuals take 
advantage of what they have at hand, thereby 
bettering mankind and bettering the condi¬ 
tion. We have seen nations drawn closer to¬ 
gether because their soldiers bled together on 
one common battle field, under the same blue 
sky of heaven. They all joined together on 
that battle field on which so much destruction 
and misery was occasioned. Here methods 
were used w T hich had never been used before, 
and the sons of all the nations of the allies 
went down to death together, most of them to 
be buried and shrouded in the flag of their 
particular country on foreign soil, but many 
of them meeting their death in times and 
places which make them lie today in unknown 
graves. Just recently one thing has been 
done which did much to cement the people of 
the earth together and that is the honor which 
has been given to the unknown soldier. 

281 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

One day during the past year in the streets 
of Paris there gathered together the notable 
people of France. There came the army, that 
army that acquitted itself with such credit on 
every bloody field of battle along the entire 
battle line, and they marched through the 
streets of Paris down to the Place De Concord 
which has been the scene of so many revolu¬ 
tions and on they went until they came to the 
great Arch of Triumph. There they gathered. 
Out from the army of France there stepped 
a squad of French soldiers who marched up 
to this Arch of Triumph and stood at atten¬ 
tion and from another source came a regiment 
of American soldiers headed by General 
Pershing, fifth only in line as the successor of 
Washington, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, 
and who fought side by side with the French 
soldier on the field of battle. And out from 
this line marched another squad of American 
boys who took their place in front of the 
French soldiers, and then General Pershing, 
in fitting words of ceremony, laid on the grave 
of the unknown French soldier who is buried 
under the Arch of Triumph the Congressional 
Medal, which had never before been awarded 
to any person excepting an American soldier, 
and then only for a risk of life above and be¬ 
yond the call of duty. This was an expression 
of our friendship and our honor and reverence 


282 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

for the French people. And as they were 
gathered together there that day at the spot 
which France had decided was the spot which 
would give the greatest honor to the repose 
of its unknown dead, there was cemented to¬ 
gether a friendship between the American 
and French people which let us hope will be 
long and lasting. 

A few days after that the scene was trans¬ 
ferred to England, to Westminster Abbey, 
that ancient Abbey that holds sacred the re¬ 
mains of most of England’s great dead, and 
in this Abbey that day there was a scene the 
like of which had never existed before. This 
wonderful old Abbey is filled with tombs of 
kings, queens, statesmen, poets, and noted 
people, and it is the most sacred spot in all of 
the British Empire, and it was there that Eng¬ 
land had buried her unknown soldier and 
given to him the greatest honor the nation 
could give. On this particular day the king 
and all of the great men of England assembled 
and there came in a squad of British soldiers 
and marched down the aisles of this old 
church and took their places at a spot on which 
was spread the British flag. And then in 
marched a squad of American soldiers. They 
marched up facing the British soldiers and 
took their position, not divided as they had 
been in the past by three thousand miles of 

283 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 


ocean or the differences of opinion; this day 
there were no differences, and as they stood 
so close together that they could have reached 
out and took hold of each others’ hands, they 
looked each other straight in the eyes and they 
realized and so did all present, that they were 
there to give honor to the unknown soldier 
of England, and that they were there to 
cement together the friendship of the British 
and American people. And as the sun 
streamed through the beautiful colored win¬ 
dows of Westminister Abbey that day and as 
its rays fell upon the British flag and upon 
the heaps of rosaries placed at the head of 
the tomb by the loving hands of British moth¬ 
ers and the spot upon which the unknown 
soldier was buried, General Pershing again 
stepped forward and had the honor to present 
the second Congressional Medal that had ever 
gone to any except an American soldier. The 
news of this meeting was flashed around the 
world as a meeting of friends, as an honor 
which had been done by one nation to an¬ 
other, by one individual to another, and it is 
far reaching in cementing together the friend¬ 
ship of the people of the two greatest nations 
of the earth. 

And then just a few days later—on Arm¬ 
istice Day—the scene was transferred to 
Arlington cemetery in our own country. On 


284 


MAKING GOOD WITH WHAT YOU HAVE 

that day there had come a squad of American 
soldiers from France bringing with them the 
body of the unknown soldier who had been 
buried on the field of battle in France. No 
one knew his name nor whence he came. It 
was enough that he was an American boy. 
His body was covered with French soil from 
the trenches but it was wrapped in the Stars 
and Stripes and with honor this squad of 
American soldiers had escorted their com¬ 
rade back to his native land to be buried with 
all the honors that our nation could give; 
and on this day the procession headed by the 
President of the United States marched to 
the cemetery for the burial of this soldier. 
Out from the ranks there came this squad of 
American soldiers and took their place at the 
grave, and then there came another squad of 
French soldiers wearing on their breasts the 
medal of honor of France, and still another 
squad of British soldiers forming a triangle 
of honor and friendship. And the Govern¬ 
ment of France had sent General Foch, its 
Commander, with its highest medal of honor 
to bestow upon this unknown dead, and Great 
Britain had sent its Victoria Cross which 
never before had been bestowed upon any but 
a British soldier and our own great country 
had sent a Congressional Medal which rightly 
belonged to this man, and all were placed 

285 


THE EMPIRE OF LIFE INSURANCE 

upon the casket of this unknown soldier from 
some unknown village or hamlet in this coun¬ 
try of ours. 

This man was buried that day with 
greater honors than any man, be he king, 
merchant or individual, and that spot will be 
the shrine forever for American people and 
for American mothers. Every American 
mother whose boy went forward to battle 
never to return, with prayers on her lips will 
hope that it is her son who rests in this sacred 
spot in Arlington, but if it is not her son, she 
will know that this honor which has been 
given by the three greatest nations of the 
earth applies just as much to her son wherever 
he may rest. We know that this triangle of 
friendship formed that day by these three 
great countries will make a lasting and en¬ 
during friendship between these nations, and 
we know that these great acts and great hon¬ 
ors which were given from one nation to an¬ 
other, and from one people to another, sacred 
as they were, and splendid as we looked upon 
them, were merely the acts of each nation— 
of all their people—making good with what 
they had. 


286 






































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